


Moonflower

by TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Car Accidents, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mystery, Paranormal, Paranormal Investigators, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2019-10-04 21:19:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17312051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard/pseuds/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard
Summary: Felix is lost. Very lost. So lost he can't come back.Changbin will go anywhere to find Felix but, like most stories involving love, there is one very large thing keeping them apart.For now.





	1. Starting Things Off After Things Have Ended

It had just stopped raining.

 

It was February, almost March, which meant the rain was freezing and had made Changbin shiver even though he was bundled up in a coat, scarf and gloves. Figuring the rain had stopped for good this time, he moved the umbrella from over his head, closed it and shook it out. The warmth of the coffee he had at the diner had long since left his body which meant he was feeling empty, cold and dead inside.

 

Perhaps one of those things had nothing to do with the rain.

 

He checked his watch. Possibly the most expensive thing he owned and definitely the most important gift he’d ever received.

 

It was just shy of nine o’clock. They were late. The investigator who was supposed to meet him here was late. And not just by minutes. They also weren’t answering his calls.

 

With a sigh, he glanced around. He’d been standing near a bus stop on a rural road all of this time. Up the street was the diner. It’s ‘open’ sign glowed brightly through the after-rain fog and the red light reflected on the wet road in a long, bleeding gash. This was the place, right? Changbin reached into his pocket and pulled out the note he’d scribbled down earlier that afternoon. It was crumpled and damp from spending an evening in the rain with him but he could still read the ink. Yes. They had told him to meet at the bus stop across from the diner at seven in the evening on the road that went past the windmills. He was certain there couldn’t be any other bus stops, diners or bus stops across from diners around here. He was out in the middle of nowhere. There just _wasn’t_ anything else around.

 

But… he should just give up.

 

Changbin hated to think about it but he knew that there would be no chance he’d see Felix again. They were together and then they were separated but he just wanted… no, he _needed_ them to be together again. He could not go forward without Felix.

 

But it would be so much easier to leave without him.

 

According to the schedule, the last bus of the night would be coming through in less than ten minutes. He could just take it back to the city and pretend that he’d never let some stranger over the phone get his hopes up and convince him to come all the way out into the country and spend two hours standing in the rain.

 

What he thought was thunder and the bright blue flash of lightning was really a sleek red sports car rumbling over the hill, its bright lights piercing the night, and screeching to a stop at the side of the road next to him.

 

The driver’s side door swung open and a man in a long, black trench coat got out. It was the middle of the night but the man wore mirrored shades. His hair was jet black and long enough to rest in a gentle curl over his shoulders. It was hard to tell in the dark but Changbin was certain that he spotted the black ink of tattoos on the back of the man’s hands. He shut the door behind him and circled around the fancy car and stepped towards Changbin.

 

“Hey,” the man said like they knew each other.

 

Changbin just stood there. He was the only person in any direction that this man could be talking to but why would he be talking to him?

 

The man pulled a pack of menthol cigarettes from the pocket of his trench coat. “You the new client?” His voice was surprisingly light and melodic.

 

Realization hit Changbin. “You’re not the psychic, are you?” he asked, dumbstruck.

 

“You sound disappointed.”

 

Changbin clamped his mouth shut. Perhaps he was. He had expected some eccentric in bohemian clothing and gaudy jewelry not a fashionable if not slightly off-putting modern man covered in ink and piercings.

 

It was as if the guy read his mind. “I’m Hyunjin. And you’re Changbin. I’m psychic but not _the_ psychic. I’m just the assistant.” He turned his head towards the diner up the road. “Were you waiting long?”

 

“No,” Changbin lied.

 

Hyunjin looked back at him. Even with his shades on, Changbin could feel the man look him up and down. He pulled a fancy lighter from a different pocket of his trench coat and lit the cigarette between his fingers. He leaned close enough to Changbin that the shorter man could see his own reflection in the shades: short black hair, long straight nose, sharp chin, downturned mouth, eyes that hadn’t known happiness in a while. That sort of thing. As if Hyunjin had found out all that he needed to know, he leaned away from Changbin, put his weight against his bright red car and exhaled smoke into the night. “He usually doesn’t accept more than one client at a time so there must have been something about your story that he could not pass up. Couldn’t be the desperation. Everybody’s desperate.”

 

Changbin didn’t know how to respond to that so he just waved away the cigarette smoke.

 

“My best guess would be the heavy gray regret you willingly carry behind you like a drag chute.”

 

Changbin didn’t know how to respond to _that_ so he just stood there.

 

Hyunjin put the cigarette between his lips again, inhaled sharply to turn the cherry bright red and then held the smoke in his lungs for several seconds before letting it flush out of his nostrils. “So do you know about the kind of work we do? I mean, you know enough to hire us but do you really _know_?” Even when he was slouching on the car, he was significantly taller than Changbin. That was intimidating enough but then it was also impossible to gauge his mood because most of his face was hidden by his shades. He was smiling but was it a friendly grin or condescending snarl? “Do you know what we’re really after here?”

 

Changbin cleared his throat. “Your company finds lost things. Lost items.” He trailed off for a moment, lost in painful memories. “Lost... people.” He looked up and searched Hyunjin’s half-hidden face, as if looking for approval, but the man only exhaled smoke and waited. Changbin didn’t know what else to say so he just rambled. “Your boss, Woojin… He can find anything with his powers. He can connect to the other side by touching items.”

 

“Psychometry,” Hyunjin supplied. He tilted his head and looked past Changbin to the wide, rolling hills that surrounded the rural road. “He’s here. I can... tell.”

 

That was a relief. He’d paid in advance. “Here where?” Changbin had to ask. “There’s nothing around.” He’d been standing out here two hours with nothing to do but look. He would know.

 

Hyunjin dropped his spent cigarette on the gravel at the side of the road and snuffed it out beneath his boot. “Follow me,” he said.

 

He led the way across the grass at the side of the road and started up a hill. Changbin followed. Eagerly at first but then with a growing sense of dread as the light of the diner vanished behind the hills and there was only the rhythmic squelching of their boots in the mud to keep them company and the occasional flicker of lightning from the passing storm to light their way. The wind picked up, frigid, and whistled through the evergreens. It wasn’t until then that Changbin noticed that they weren’t wandering aimlessly like he first thought but following the faintest of dirt paths between the trees and hills. The path was all but hidden beneath the black of night, the mud and the weeds. Being on a path made Changbin feel somewhat better but being unable to see where he was going or even where they had come from did not.

 

The hills were getting steeper. Changbin was already out of breath. As the trees closed in tighter and tighter on either side of them, the night got impossibly darker. Fortunately, Changbin wasn’t completely unprepared. He grabbed a flashlight from his pants pocket and turned it on. The bright blue light barely illuminated Hyunjin dressed in all black right in front of him.

 

The path curved around a hill and a thick cluster of trees. When it straightened out, they spotted an ancient, boxy sedan pulled to the side of the road.

 

Hyunjin said, “It’s his. Woojin’s.” He glanced over his shoulder at Changbin and the beam of the flashlight reflected off his shades, the glare looking like animal eyes in the darkness. Hyunjin turned back around. “I wonder what he’s doing out here that he didn’t even stop to meet you.”

 

“Maybe he lost track of time,” Changbin suggested. As dark as it was out here, as quiet as it was, it seemed easy to lose count of the minutes.

 

“He does that,” Hyunjin mumbled, as if he hadn’t considered it. “Guess it’s a side effect.”

 

The two of them rounded another bend in the path and an old house loomed out of the bleak. It may have been nice years ago, but now it was a mess. All faded paint and sagging roofs. Ivy climbed up the sides and the grass was knee-high like the place hasn’t been kept up in a decade.

 

Changbin swung the flashlight left and right and then left again. The light brought a long, smear of white into view. A ghost? He shrieked and turned the flashlight right again. The white smear moved towards them with quite some speed.

 

“Woojin,” Hyunjin said, stepping forward.

 

Changbin relaxed. It was a person. A living, breathing man. The streak of white was the man’s knit scarf draped over his shoulders.

 

“Woojin, what are you doing out here in the dark?”

 

Woojin gave Hyunjin a pat on the shoulder in greeting. “It’s my fault.” He held up a long, metallic object that Changbin took a moment to realize was a cheap flashlight. Woojin said, “I didn’t check the batteries before I left. It died a while ago. My cell phone, too.”

 

Hyunjin frowned. “Our client has been waiting since seven. It’s after nine.”

 

“I called,” Changbin said. Fifteen or sixteen times. “Once or twice.”

 

“I lost track of time,” Woojin explained to Hyunjin. He had a rectangular, statuesque face and thick eyebrows. His dark hair was pushed up and away from his forehead. His facial features should have combined in a way that made him look warm and approachable like a child’s toy or a middle school principal but there was something about the narrowness of his eyes and the lines that dug into his forehead that gave his face a hardened, world-weary edge. A sheathed kitchen knife. A serrated blade kept just slightly out of view by a thin, protective layer of cardboard. Woojin said, “I was feeling things out. Dipping my toes in, if you pardon the expression. But the water is deeper out here than I thought, if we’re going to keep the same analogy going.” He turned to Changbin suddenly. “Hello.”

 

“How do you do,” Changbin responded. Belatedly, he lowered his flashlight a bit so the beam of light wasn’t shining directly into Woojin’s face. “Thank you for taking on my request.”

 

Hyunjin had something to say. “Deep waters? You said yourself that spirit activity levels are low here. You said yourself that the place isn’t _haunted_.”

 

“It doesn’t appear to be,” Woojin reassured him. “It’s just an old, abandoned house but that doesn’t change the fact that... something is here.”

 

Hyunjin went quiet.

 

Woojin turned to look at the small, old house. “The front door is locked, unsurprisingly. I haven’t managed to find a way in yet.”

 

“The bible says, if you can’t open a door you have to make it open up by throwing something heavy through it,” Hyunjin said with a mischievous grin.

 

“I doubt that’s the exact scripture,” Changbin said without thinking.

 

“I’d rather not… _disturb_ this place,” Woojin seemed to agree.

 

Hyunjin waved away such concerns. “If it’s not haunted, what’s the risk?”

 

“That is no excuse to trash the place.”

 

“And didn’t you say,” Changbin spoke up, “that something was out here?” Deep waters and all that.

 

Woojin turned his dark eyes towards the shorter boy. He breathed in slowly and then exhaled as if what he wanted to say was important but not quite important enough. Deciding against saying anything about it entirely, he turned back to Hyunjin. “How long did you say he had been waiting?”

 

“Since seven,” Hyunjin told him.

 

When Woojin looked back at Changbin, his expression had softened microscopically. Now he was a slightly less sharp knife. “I was supposed to be done here by seven so that we can attend to your request and go straight to our next destination from here. The… the…”

 

Changbin shut his eyes for a split second. He heard screeching tires. He saw oncoming headlights. He opened his eyes. “The bridge,” he offered.

 

“Right. The bridge,” Woojin stated. Then he opened his eyes wide as he more properly recalled everything. “The bridge.” He glanced back at Hyunjin. “Let’s just try to force open a window. We really don’t need to stay here long.”

 

Hyunjin scoffed. “We’re out in the middle of nowhere. Just put the front bumper of your car through the door. Best lockpick on the planet.”

 

“I will not,” Woojin told him.

 

“No one will notice, as dented as your car is.”

 

“Just find us a window we can reach.”

 

Changbin didn’t really care about methodology. He’d bowl the whole place over with a steam shovel if it meant getting to see Felix again. The faster they finished here, the faster they could get to the bridge. “I’ll help.”

 

“That’s not really necessary,” Woojin said. “We’re helping _you_. You’re our client.”

 

And what was the alternative? Stand out here in the dark alone until they were finished doing whatever it was they were doing out here? “I’ll help,” Changbin repeated.

 

Woojin stared at him for a long time. “Okay then.” Without any further preamble, Woojin lead the way around the left side of the old house. Changbin followed as close behind him as he could manage while Hyunjin took a far more leisurely pace bringing up the rear. It was quiet out here now that the wind had died down. It was too cold out for the birds and even for the bugs. There was only the sound of the crunch of their shoes in the grass.

 

Woojin paused to try a window but it did not budge. Even when Hyunjin gave it a heave, it remained wedged shut.

 

The three of them moved on.

 

To break the silence, Changbin attempted to strike up conversation. “I heard your skills are phenomenal.” And legitimate, he added in his head. Not like the other frauds he’d spent money hiring.

 

“Don’t put me on too high of a pedestal,” Woojin said. “I am human. I make mistakes. My skills are limited. I can do one specific thing very well and figured out how to get paid to do it. That’s it.”

 

In the tense quiet that followed, Changbin wondered if he hit a sore spot with him, which was not his intention. “Sorry,” he said.

 

Without saying a word, Woojin found another window and tested his strength on the rotted wooden frame. There was a moment where it seemed like it would give but...

 

“Let me at it,” Hyunjin called out. “I can just wrap my coat around my arm and-”

 

“Sshh,” Woojin shushed him.

 

He fell quiet.

 

It took a moment but Changbin heard something. There was a scratching sound from nearby. Changbin swung the flashlight out towards the woods surrounding the house. There was a tire swing hanging from a branch of a tree. The black of the hills were barely discernible from the black of the night sky. The stars were blotted out by the remnants of the storm clouds. Even the moon was heavily covered and offered little more than a speck of light.

 

Something grabbed Changbin’s wrist.

 

His whole body tensed. He yelped.

 

“Hey.” It was Woojin’s voice. Low and hot and unamused. He squeezed Changbin’s wrist tighter than he probably needed to. “Bring the light back this way.”

 

Changbin relaxed and let Woojin guide his hand and aim the flashlight back at the house. Changbin exhaled. There weren’t _supposed_ to be ghosts at this place but it was so cold and so dark and so quiet out there that it was easy to believe that something was lurking in the shadows. “Why would anyone build a house way out here?”

 

Hyunjin spoke up, “Land’s just cheaper this far away from the city.” He lowered his shades down the bridge of his nose and revealed the pretty shape of his eyes for the first time all night. Then he slid his shades back up his nose, covering them again. “I know what you’re thinking. Don’t you worry. The place is just old. Nothing heinous happened here.” Then he lowered his voice. “Nothing’s lingering.”

 

 _Nothing’s lingering._ Changbin swallowed. “Is that your power?”

 

“Not… quite.”

 

“I found a door,” Woojin cut in.

 

Changbin and Hyunjin both turned towards him.

 

In the moments they had been talking, Woojin had gotten quite some ways around the side of the house, his scarf a ghastly white streak in the darkness. Hyunjin and Changbin followed him to the corner.

 

There was a small wooden door there. Chipped. Rotted. Faded paint. Woojin tried the door, turning the handle one way and then the other, jiggling it in case there was some kind of trick to it. Hyunjin shoved him aside and rammed his shoulder right into the thing, making the door creak and the whole house shutter. The sound of settling debris continued for several seconds before going quiet again.

 

“Let’s not bring the roof down on top of our heads,” Woojin warned, probably far too late.

 

“We’re not going to get anywhere playing things safe,” Hyunjin retorted.

 

Changbin looked up. Then he gasped. So sharply he nearly choked.

 

“What? What is it?” Hyunjin asked, whirling around to look at him.

 

“There’s a window,” Changbin said, pointing his flashlight above the door. “And it’s open.”

 

Woojin and Hyunjin both tilted their heads to see. “It’s too small for us to fit through,” Hyunjin pointed out.

 

Changbin smiled and stepped forward, brushing the two taller, wider men aside. “But I’m just the right size.”


	2. 'Cause Your Love's So Cold I See My Breath

It didn’t take all too much for Changbin to remember  _ that _ night. The thought of it always seemed to be lurking at the back of his mind. Waiting. Waiting for him to let down his guard. 

 

And he would let down his guard often. It was far too easy to do.

 

He could be in the apartment he shared with Felix going about his evening and then he would hear the floorboards creak as the place settled in the cold, winter wind. Changbin would always think it was Felix coming up the hall so he would smile and initiate a conversation only to be answered by nothing but silence. He’d turn his head and wait for Felix to show up at the end of the hall only to remember all over again that Felix wasn’t in the apartment anymore. 

 

Changbin hated how easy it was to forget. His mind and his heart and his body sometimes acted on their own. He still set the dinner table for two people most evenings. Whenever he stopped by the convenience store, he bought Felix’s favorite snacks from force of habit. In the apartment, he still politely knocked on a closed door thinking that Felix was busy on the other side. There were many nights where he’d be half-asleep in bed and mistake the old mattress creaking and shifting as Felix rolling over next to him. 

 

It was the little things like that. They piled up on his shoulders.

 

Changbin still paid to keep Felix’s phone in service and, even to this day, Felix received text messages and emails and SNS notifications from distant friends or old classmates who had not yet found out that he was  _ gone _ . 

 

It was easy to exist in that middle, gray space between remembering and forgetting. To see  _ just enough _ of him left behind to believe Felix was still there. To have _ just enough _ missing to know that Felix was no longer around.

 

The last few weeks had been agony. 

 

It didn’t help that Changbin’s memory of the accident would find the strangest ways to jump into his head. He’d be out somewhere and hear a particularly loud car horn and he’d freeze up. He’d be in the shower until the hot water ran out and the cold on his skin would make him feel like he was drowning.

 

Sometimes, something as simple as being alone in the dark for too long could trigger the memory. 

 

He hated the dark. He dreaded it. He’d never had a problem with it before but now all it did was remind him of those long, lonely hours he spent alone at the side of the road, hurt and waiting for help.

 

The dark was a physical thing that followed him now.

 

If he sat too still, the shadows in a room seemed to creep in close to him and then he would have no other choice but to relive the awful memory of that night on the bridge. 

 

He was experiencing a flash of it now: Felix in the passenger seat, pointing and screaming in warning. Grabbing Changbin’s arm. A foot slammed on the brakes. Tires sliding uselessly on the ice.

 

“Changbin!”

 

That was how Felix had yelled his name, tears springing to his eyes.

 

“Changbin!”

 

Impact. Spinning, spinning, spinning. Guardrail. Crash. Falling. Water. Cold.

 

Dark.

 

“Changbin,” the shout came a third time. “Are you okay in there? We heard a crash.”

 

Changbin blinked.

 

He was no longer fighting his way to the surface of the river. He was inside the old house, sprawled out across the floor while breathing hard and choking on stirred-up dust. “Woojin,” he called out.

 

On the other side of the door, Woojin responded, “You’re not hurt, are you?”

 

“Please don’t press charges,” Hyunjin added.

 

Changbin stood up on shaky legs, grunting as pain throbbed through his back and his knees. He had to remind himself of what he was doing: sneaking into an old, abandoned house with two near-strangers. He eyed the window he had just crawled through. Hyunjin had used his great height to boost Changbin up to it. “It was a higher fall than I expected. Knocked the wind out of me. I’m okay.”

 

“Can you unlock the door,” Hyunjin’s voice drifted to him.

 

Woojin’s voice cut in. “Rude.”

 

“What?” Hyunjin asked with a careless laugh. “He said he was okay.”

 

The floorboards creaked. Changbin turned around to face the noise but there was no other sound. No movement. The shadows of the house seemed to reach out for him and threaten to send him right back to the bridge. Changbin shone his flashlight into the corners to push back the dark. He shoved the painful memories away and put on a smile. Certainly, the other two men would think less of him if he ever showed them that he was a frightened, spineless mess. He had volunteered to come along, after all. “I’ll get the door,” he sang out, forcing himself to sound bright and unafraid.

 

“That’ll be great,” Woojin encouraged him.

 

Changbin approached the door.

 

Fortunately, the lock was extremely simple and he easily managed to twist it. The door itself, on the other hand, had practically been sealed shut. The neglected wood had rotted from years of sun and rain. The hinges were rusted stiff. The house had settled and made all of the angles uneven, making it near-impossible for the door to budge. It took some doing, and Hyunjin had to use his shoulder and  _ heave _ , but Changbin got the door open enough for the psychic and his assistant to squeeze through.

 

Woojin almost immediately scrunched up his face in pain.

 

Hyunjin spotted his expression. “What’s up?”

 

Woojin had to squeeze his eyes shut. “Deep waters,” he stated. Just like what he’d said before. “If I could just take a moment to readjust…”

 

Changbin asked, “Deep waters?” 

 

“He’s talking about spiritual energy,” Hyunjin explained. “It collects in places where there’s a lot of activity.” He frowned. “Nothing should be here, though. So I don’t know why he’s reacting.”

 

“I told you before,” Woojin spoke up. “There’s… something here.”

 

“A ghost?” Changbin asked, unable to hide the shake in his voice.

 

“No,” Woojin said. “I’m actually not quite sure. It’s  _ something _ . That’s all I can tell you.”

 

Hyunjin propped his hands on his hips and smiled. “We should investigate.”

 

“We shouldn’t get involved,” Woojin directly contradicted him. “The water… It’s too dark to see through.”

 

Dark.

 

Changbin was becoming all the more aware of the flashlight in his hand. It was the one flashlight they had between them so every time the beam momentarily dimmed, his body stiffened with fear of the encroaching shadows. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

 

“Good,” said Hyunjin. “It means we’re on the right track.”

 

“Bad,” Woojin hissed. He was still wincing. “Because we aren’t here for the water. We’re here for the ring.”

 

“...the ring,” Changbin slowly repeated.

 

“We came here looking for a ring,” Hyunjin filled him in. “A wedding ring, to be exact. A family heirloom thought to be lost until Woojin caught a trace of it that led here.” He clamped a hand down hard on Changbin’s shoulder. “You know it for yourself. We find lost things. It’s what we do.”

 

“It’s nighttime,” said Changbin, completely off-topic. He could see his reflection in Hyunjin’s shades. He hated how scared he looked. “How do you see with those on?”

 

Hyunjin smirked and pulled away. “Better than you’d think.”

 

“Alright,” Woojin cut in. He had regained his composure and was shifting his scarf around his neck. “We’re looking for a room with a bunch of curtains. Or maybe fabric hanging on the walls. That’s all I could see so I can’t be entirely sure. It’s probably a bedroom. Or a crafting room of some kind.” He gripped Changbin’s wrist and made him turn the beam of the flashlight right and then left, putting light in the room’s far corners. “This must have been the kitchen.”

 

But the room was practically empty now. Most of the doors on the cabinets were missing and there were cavernous holes where the fridge and stove should have been. Dust coated everything.

 

“This way,” Woojin commanded. He lead the others through a narrow archway, gripping Changbin by the wrist while Hyunjin followed behind.

 

The feeling brought back bits and pieces of a memory in Changbin’s head.

 

It was just like three or so years ago with Felix leading him through the halls and rooms of what would soon become their apartment. Their home. 

 

Those were happier times. 

 

Felix had been so bright and so cheerful, saying things like, “You can practice your flute where all the windows are,” or “I’ll have plenty of room to spread out my work here if we buy a big enough desk.” Changbin’s life had been so simple and easy then. Every day was filled with music and smiles.

 

“Changbin,” Woojin’s sharp voice cut into his reverie. “Point the light this way.”

 

Snapping out of it, Changbin turned his wrist to point the flashlight in Woojin’s direction.

 

It seemed as if they were in a side hall. Part of the hall was lined with built-in bookcases and there was a surprising number of magazines, journals and novels left behind.

 

“A waste,” Hyunjin commented. “Pawn shops shell out big cash for old books.”

 

Woojin scanned a few of the titles. Every now and then, he used the sleeve of his coat to wipe dust off of the lettering. “Nothing here’s worth much cash,” he muttered. “Books on bird watching and agriculture. A few cheap books of sheet music. A handful of romance novels. Nothing special. No wonder they left it behind.” He stepped away from the shelf. “Look. Around the corner.”

 

He stepped down the hall. His shoes made the old wooden floors creak and groan.

 

“I think I’m going to take this,” Hyunjin said, approaching the shelf Woojin had just abandoned. “I recognize the author’s name. It’s a first edition. It’ll sell for a shit ton.”

 

“Leave it,” Woojin snapped.

 

Hyunjin took the book off of the shelf and tucked it under his arm anyway.

 

Woojin turned the corner and disappeared from sight. A second later, he called out, “Changbin. The light.”

 

“Understood.” Changbin trailed after Woojin through the house. Only then did it really start to dawn on him what he was doing. Sneaking into some dilapidated house out in the middle of nowhere, all on a whim that this psychic would be different from the other frauds. That this psychic would actually be able to find Felix.

 

Changbin’s heart began to race. He didn’t know why he was doing this! He was so stupid. And so lonely.

 

“Changbin, the light,” Woojin repeated with a surprising amount of anger.

 

“I’m here,” Changbin said, turning the corner and running square into Woojin’s broad back.

 

They were at the front of the house. In some kind of foyer. The large front door of the house let the tiniest amount of air from outside seep underneath it, creating a low whistling noise that sent a chill up Changbin’s spine.

 

Hyunjin clapped his hand on Changbin’s back, making the small boy yelp.

 

“Loosen up,” the tattooed man laughed. “I told you before that the place isn’t haunted.”

 

Woojin wasn’t in the mood. “This way.”

 

They walked past the front door and passed through an archway into another space. It was the living room. Changbin glanced around. He had been in empty rooms before. He and Felix had toured through countless ones on their apartment hunt. Even though he knew that wasn’t much different from what he was doing now, he couldn’t shake the fact that there was a different kind of loneliness here. In the apartments, the rooms were empty to show how wonderful of a place they’d be to start the pages of a new chapter. Here, though, with the sheet-covered armchair in the corner and a pile of sewing equipment on a sagging table collecting dust, Changbin felt like these rooms were empty to show that they were chapters not even worth finishing.

 

Everything here was just… abandoned.

 

Like Changbin.

 

“This one room is bigger than my whole apartment,” Hyunjin griped. He ran a hand through his long, curly hair. “Do you know how tiny my kitchen is?”

 

“Let’s stay focused,” chided Woojin. He grabbed hold of Changbin’s wrist to aim the flashlight around the room. “This isn’t the place I saw. Down the hall. Let’s go.” He spun around.

 

Changbin parroted, “The place you saw? Have you been here before?”

 

Woojin came to a halt in the hallway. “You could call it that.” He winced again but hid it by turning away.

 

“I told you,” Hyunjin butted in, leaning into Changbin’s face. “He’s got psychometric abilities. Bring him something with strong memories attached to it and he can see the lives and places and events it is tied to. That’s how he knew to come here.” 

 

“He doesn’t need to know everything,” Woojin grunted.

 

“Why not?” Hyunjin asked. 

 

Woojin didn’t have an answer for him.

 

Hyunjin used his silence as permission to continue. “Our current client is a young woman a few months away from getting married. She remembered that the wedding ring had been passed down through the women in her family for generations but after some family complications involving her grandmother’s will, she only wound up with the wooden box it comes in.”

 

“So she brought it to us,” Woojin said, steadying himself by putting his hand on the wall. “And I was able to determine that the ring was simply misplaced here nearly fifty years ago.” He stepped down the hallway a few paces and came to a stop outside of a closed door. “Let’s try this room.” He twisted the handle. “Locked. No. Wait.” He pushed on the door. “Just jammed.”

 

“On it,” said Hyunjin. He brushed past Changbin, put his shoulder against the door and shoved.

 

Woojin spotted the novel tucked under Hyunjin’s arm. “Put that book back. We’re not thieves.”

 

“Is it stealing if it doesn’t belong to anyone?” Hyunjin put his shoulder to the door again. The walls shook a little.

 

Hyunjin took a step back and then more forcefully slammed his shoulder against the door.

 

“What did I say about not bringing the roof down on our heads?” Woojin scolded.

 

“How are we going to find the ring if I don’t open the door?” Hyunjin twisted the doorknob rather violently, pushing against the wood with all of his might.

 

Woojin sighed. “We don’t need to wreck the place.”

 

“Do you want all of that reward money or not,” Hyunjin asked, clearly getting pissed. “That girl has no concept of money. She could buy three of those rings with the money she’s offering us.” He flung himself against the door again and, this time, it flew open and crashed against the wall with a thunderous sound.

 

Inside was quite the spacious bedroom.

 

Changbin had to admit that this had probably been an extremely nice house when it was still being kept up. It didn’t look like much from the outside with the overgrown weeds and rotted wood but Hyunjin had been right: the place was huge. Although the rooms were all empty and cobwebs hung as thick as curtains in the corners, it was becoming clearer and clearer to him that the bones of the house held old-money opulence.

 

“I don’t think this is the room,” said Woojin.

 

“After all of that work?” Hyunjin complained.

 

Woojin took a step inside of the room and glanced around, just to be sure. “Not this room,” he confirmed.

 

“It’s going to take forever to go door by door like this,” Hyunjin whined. “Just dip your toes in the water or whatever so that you can get a more accurate location.” He turned his head in Changbin’s direction. “We still have to go to the bridge, you know.” Although his eyes were covered by his shades and he didn’t turn his head in the slightest, Changbin could feel the moment Hyunjin looked away from him and aimed his gaze back at Woojin. “It’ll be midnight before we get there and you  _ know _ the problem with midnight.”

 

Woojin hummed thoughtfully but did not directly address Hyunjin’s concerns. “The next room.”

 

So they went to the next door. It opened to a bathroom. The mirror was gone. The metal of the faucet had turned white and porous from lime buildup. Mold grew in thick, disgusting clumps across the broken tile floor.

 

Changbin slapped a hand over his nose and mouth to block out the stench.

 

Woojin pulled his scarf up over his own face. “Not here,” he huffed, shutting the door back tight.

 

“This is what I mean,” said Hyunjin. “We’re going to be here all night at this rate. All you’ve got to go on is some fabric samples?”

 

“I can’t control what I see.” Woojin’s voice was muffled by his scarf. He, too, seemed to be getting agitated. He stomped off down the hall. “Changbin. The light.”

 

Changbin swung his flashlight after the man. The blue light bounced off a pane of glass at the end of the hall. 

 

That was all it took.

 

He was back in that night. Back on the bridge. The only thing he could see were the bright headlights of the oncoming truck. All he could hear was Felix’s shouts of his name. A horn blaring. Tires squealing.

 

His whole body seized up. He tightened his hands around the steering wheel. It wasn’t enough. The truck was heading right for them, having lost control on the icy bridge. There was no room to swerve out of the way. There was no place they could go to avoid it. He looked up at Felix. The headlights of the truck turned the man’s tears to diamonds.

 

Changbin had never seen Felix so afraid before.

 

Just before impact, Changbin came crashing out of the bad memory. He looked up. Woojin had turned around to look at him with barely contained annoyance on his face. Hyunjin, on the other hand, had slipped his shades down his nose and was watching Changbin with his bright brown eyes with an oddly bemused smirk on his lips.

 

“What did you see?” Hyunjin asked.

 

Changbin held a hand to his forehead. His eyes were focused on the window at the end of the hall. “A light.”

 

Hyunjin snorted. “Well, don’t walk towards it.”

 

“No. I mean…” Changbin struggled to find the words. “A light.” He took his hand off of his forehead to point down the hall.

 

Hyunjin glanced in the indicated direction. “The reflection of the flashlight?”

 

Woojin rushed up to Changbin and snatched the flashlight out of his hand. He clicked it off and the trio were soon enveloped in cold blackness.

 

But only for a moment.

 

A faint, humming noise started to rumble into the quiet of the house. A yellowish glow came in through the window. It steadily got brighter and brighter.

 

Changbin shrieked. “A ghost?”

 

“No,” Woojin corrected him. He rushed to the end of the hall and peered through the dusty glass. “Headlights.”

 

The humming noise was clearly the distinct growl of an engine and the three men stood in paralyzed shock as the sound cut out. The headlights outside went out, flooding them in a darkness so heavy that Changbin couldn’t tell the difference between his eyes being opened or closed. Panic began to set in. It was like cold hands grasping at his wrists and ankles, clawing at his ears.

 

There was a car door slamming. The distinct murmur of voices. Footsteps. A banging noise from somewhere behind them. The screech of rusted hinges.

 

Changbin reached out into the darkness. He reached and reached until he felt the heat of someone next to him. He didn’t relax until he’d found their hand and gripped it tight.

 

“Scared,” Hyunjin’s low, teasing voice was immediately in Changbin’s ear.

 

The glow of flashlights had arrived somewhere in the foyer. For now, the trio were safe at the far end of the hall but it was apparent that they had moments at best to duck into a room and get out of sight. 

 

Hyunjin was the first to act. He pulled Changbin back a few paces and then eased open the bathroom door. “Come on,” he whispered.

 

Changbin allowed himself to be pulled but he turned his eyes in Woojin’s direction just as the man winced and pressed his hands to either side of his head as the ache pounded through his skull.

 

Deep, dark waters.

 

Woojin managed to open his eyes. Changbin could see the reflection of the flashlights in them. The psychic mumbled, “I think I know what they’re here for.”


	3. Amaranth

“This place gives off such bad vibes,” said a low, shaky voice from down the hall.

 

A much calmer voice answered, “I know. Isn’t it great?”

 

“That isn’t something to be happy about. Come on. Let’s check around the corner.”

 

The brightness of the flashlights increased. The footsteps drew closer.

 

Changbin grabbed hold of the sleeve of Woojin’s coat and pulled the man into the pitch-black bathroom. Hyunjin eased the door closed until there was only the tiniest peephole to see out into the hall with.

 

“Damn, they’re loud,” Hyunjin whispered.

 

Changbin thought, _says the guy who tackles doors_.

 

Hyunjin spun away from the door and looked in Changbin’s direction. It was tough to read his expression normally but, in the dark, Changbin could really only see the faintest outline of his mouth and chin. Even with so little, it was very easy to get the impression that Hyunjin was upset.

 

“What,” Changbin asked in a low voice.

 

Hyunjin only turned back around with a sigh. He leaned close to the crack in the door and peered out into the dusty hall.

 

Changbin turned his head.

 

Woojin still seemed frozen, trapped in whatever spiritual energy that was holding his good sense hostage.

 

These new visitors didn’t seem to be as careful as Woojin about not disturbing the place. Changbin couldn’t see them, but he could hear them. Hear their heavy steps. There was a crash as one of them knocked something over.

 

Changbin jolted at the noise.

 

“Did you hear that,” the calm-voiced one asked.

 

“You knocking over the umbrella stand,” asked the shrill-voiced one. “Yes.”

 

“No. Not that. I heard something else. Someone humming or breathing.”

 

Hyunjin backed away from the door hastily. Changbin held up his hands to keep the tall man from reversing right into him.

 

“Stop saying things to scare me,” said the already scared-sounding boy.

 

One of the new visitors opened the bedroom door across the hall, the one Hyunjin had struggled with. The creaking noise it made as it swung open sounded like moaning. “Hmmm. Not this one,” the calm-voiced one said. “Maybe further in?”

 

“Is he psychic, too,” Woojin whispered. “Can he also feel the water?”

 

Changbin didn’t know if he was letting all of their talk get to him or not but the air definitely seemed to be getting thicker. Harder to get in and out of his lungs.

 

Woojin’s voice was low like air seeping through a crack in the wall. “It’s… flooding.”

 

Even through his gloves, Changbin could feel Hyunjin’s back muscles tighten in apprehension. “This is bad,” the tattooed man said. “Too many psychics in one place is like a battery for spirit activity.”

 

It was as if they had forgotten that the goal was to be quiet. “We should go,” Woojin urged.

 

The footsteps out in the hall drew closer. “I know I heard voices that time.”

 

Honestly, Changbin would have preferred the appearance of a violent ghost to this kind of waiting. Meeting other people out here, other living and breathing people in a place like this... It unnerved him more than anything. He wanted to charge out of the bathroom and run but there was no telling who these people were. They couldn’t possibly know about the long lost wedding ring so why were they here? And were they dangerous?

 

“Who are they?” Changbin whispered. He could barely see Woojin even though he knew the man was right next to him. “What do they want?”

 

Hyunjin shushed him.

 

The trio stood still and waited. Changbin kept his hands on Hyunjin’s broad back, resisting the urge to press up against it and hide. He tried not to think about the fact that it was always Felix he used to hide behind. Felix wasn’t even all that much bigger than him but he was braver and quick to say, “As long as I’m here, you’ll be okay.”

 

But now he wasn’t here.

 

And Changbin wasn’t okay.

 

The flashlight beams found the crack in the door and spilled light across Woojin’s wincing face. Changbin stepped out from behind Hyunjin and pulled Woojin even farther back into the bathroom, his hip bumping into the sharp corner of the bathroom counter. He almost shouted out in pain but Hyunjin’s hand somehow found his face in the darkness and clamped down tightly over his mouth to muffle the sound.

 

“Did you hear that,” the scared-sounding one out in the hall asked. “A thump. It came from really close.”

 

The new arrivals had come to a stop right by the bathroom door. Changbin wasn’t at the best of angles to see outside. Really, all he could glimpse was the sleeve of a deep blue raincoat.

 

The frightened voice asked, “Hey, you okay? Why did you stop?”

 

The more confident voice responded, “I feel like I’m being drawn somewhere.”

 

“Stop saying creepy things, Jeongin.”

 

“It’s like I’m being called.”

 

Changbin did his best to keep his breathing slow and even. It was difficult to do. The bathroom smelled septic and every inhale threatened to make him dry heave from the stench. It didn’t help that Hyunjin still had his hand clamped around Changbin’s face, fingers almost covering his nostrils, making inhaling and exhaling far more difficult than it should have been.

 

Beyond the door, the two strangers walked farther up the hall. They seemed to be making their way to the end of it where Woojin had glanced through the window and seen them arrive in their car. “Jeongin, this isn’t funny,” said the easily frightened one. “That look in your eyes… I hate it when you get like this.”

 

“But can’t you feel it, Jisung? It’s like standing on the beach and feeling the waves drag the sand out from beneath your feet. It’s _pulling_ me.”

 

Woojin’s mouth was suddenly against Changbin’s ear. “It’s coming up from all around.”

 

The boy named Jisung asked, “Are you even listening to me?”

 

The boy named Jeongin simply said, “Something is here.”

 

Changbin got the chills.

 

Not because that was the same thing Woojin had said minutes earlier but because Changbin was absolutely certain that he felt freezing air move over his skin.

 

Hyunjin must have felt it, too. He inhaled sharply and jerked his hand away from Changbin’s face.

 

It shouldn’t have been possible. The bathroom was quite closed off. The air was stagnant and heavy. Changbin could feel Woojin leaning against his left side. He could feel Hyunjin on his right. Yet the air in front of him had brushed past his face as if someone else was hiding in the bathroom with them.

 

“It’s behind that door,” Woojin said in a monotone voice.

 

Changbin glanced at him, confused. What he said made no sense.

 

“It’s behind that door,” said the boy named Jeongin out in the hall. His voice had a strangeness to it. It sounded hollow like it was being played through a recording.

 

“Uh oh,” Hyunjin whispered. He paced an anxious circle across the tile. “Now I understand.”

 

Changbin suddenly felt hot. Too hot. Stifled. He raised a hand to his throat and loosened his scarf but it did not help. The darkness was too heavy. He could feel the walls pressing in on him. He sucked in a deep breath in a desperate attempt to fill his lungs.

 

Why couldn’t he _breathe_?

 

This wasn’t like his panic attacks caused by memories of the accident. This was something different. The air had changed. The _atmosphere_ had changed. Being in the dark always felt like something was waiting in the corners for him but now Changbin could actually feel a very strong force lurking in the house. Not a ghost, Changbin understood, but the stomach-flipping sensation of an opened sinkhole dragging everything nearby towards it.

 

Woojin seemed to snap out of his stupor. “What’s the date,” he asked, no longer caring about being quiet. “What phase of the moon is it?”

 

Changbin’s mind was suddenly blank. He wasn’t even entirely sure what day of the week it was.

 

Fortunately, Hyunjin spoke up. “The twenty-sixth.” He hesitated for a long moment. “A full moon.”

 

Now it was Woojin’s turn to pace across the tile floor. “What time is it?”

 

Changbin checked his watch. One of the last gifts he received from Felix. He could barely make out the position of the hands in the low light. Confused, he muttered, “midnight?” That couldn’t be right. The three of them hadn’t been here that long. It shouldn’t have been but ten in the evening. If that.

 

“We need to go,” Woojin stressed.

 

“Shit,” huffed Hyunjin, taking off his shades. “We’re already in it.”

 

“Jeongin,” came Jisung’s voice from the other side of the door. Close. Raw. “Let’s go. I mean it. You scare me when you get like this.”

 

Jeongin just laughed. Childlike and jubilant. “They’re asking me to let them in.”

 

The dark of the bathroom seemed to undulate around Changbin. The inky blackness rippled like water. He was getting short of breath. His chest felt like he was being squeezed. His heart pounded so hard in his chest that his hands went numb.

 

Changbin couldn’t take it anymore. He had to get out of the dark. He grabbed the door handle and nearly swung it open but Woojin’s large, warm hand was wrapped iron-tight around his wrist. “They’ll come out if you open a door.”

 

Changbin got the very distinct feeling that Woojin was not referring to the two boys standing outside in the hall.

 

Hyunjin said, “The door’s not shut completely. It should be fine.”

 

That was all the permission Changbin needed.

 

He pried Woojin’s fingers off of him and was just about to pull the door open when a strange force from outside pushed back towards him. It happened so quickly that the door nearly clipped Changbin in the jaw. A light pierced the darkness. Changbin held a hand in front of his face, squinting against the brightness. He had enough sense to realize that on the other side of the light was a small-framed kid with puffy, round cheeks and messy black hair.

 

“I _knew_ I heard voices,” he said. After shining his light left and right, catching Hyunjin and Woojin’s squinting faces, he actually seemed to _relax_. As if he were glad there wasn’t something else lurking behind the door. “Help me,” he pleaded, rather suddenly.

 

“Why? We could be weirdos,” Hyunjin told him.

 

The boy didn’t seem deterred. He aimed his flashlight in Woojin’s direction. “You’re just like my friend. All glassy-eyed and empty on the inside.”

 

Changbin swallowed hard.

 

The boy continued, “My friend… Jeongin is acting weird and he won’t respond.”

 

Hyunjin was the first to act. He knocked Changbin aside, brushed past the boy who was probably named Jisung, and stomped up the hallway.

 

Changbin rushed out after him.

 

“Hey,” Hyunjin screamed at the kid. “We’re in the middle of a tear. Don’t open any doors!”

 

Jeongin, the other boy who had come into the house, stood with both hands gripping the handle of the door at the far end of the hall. There was an oddness about him. A hollowness. It was as if he was there but also not quite _there_. His stiff-jointed attempts to open the door was more like a marionette jerking from side to side as an amatuer puppeteer pulled the strings.

 

The sight of it was startling.

 

“Hyunjin,” Woojin’s voice was ridiculously calm.

 

“On it.” The tall boy closed the gap between himself and Jeongin, boots thudding out a rhythm.

 

“What’s happening to him,” Jisung wailed, shaking Woojin’s arm. “He’s been acting like a creep since we pulled over.”

 

Woojin barely had a grip on his own senses. “The water is dark and deep.”

 

Jisung screeched, “What does that mean? What water?”

 

Now Changbin could feel it. Something cold pulling and pulling and pulling at his ankles. Deep, dark waters yanking him in. He couldn’t help but follow the strange, tingling feeling in his limbs. Was that Felix’s velvety voice he could hear?

 

Whispering. Calling out to him.

 

“Changbin,” Felix said. “I’m sorry… I have to go.”

 

“Don’t leave me,” Changbin whispered.

 

The world seemed to stretch and wobble. The hallway extended farther and farther than it should have. Hyunjin took far longer than he needed to in order to reach its end.

 

Changbin gave in. “Take me with you.”

 

Everything else was slowly beginning to fade away. All he knew was the pull. All he could do was step closer and closer towards it. That door at the end of the hall. Felix was on the other side of it. He knew it. He could smell Felix’s cologne in the air. He could hear him humming cheerfully as he worked.

 

Hyunjin had his hands on Jeongin’s shoulders and was shaking him as if trying to wake him up but it didn’t seem to be helping.

 

“Don’t touch the door,” Woojin’s voice cut through the dark. “If something has its hands on him, it’ll grab you, too.”

 

“I _know_ ,” Hyunjin shot back. He let go of Jeongin and then rolled up the left sleeve of his coat. His long arm was lean and athletically muscular, his pale skin covered from wrist to elbow in hypnotically geometric tattoos. The black ink looked odd in the thick, dust-filled air. Perhaps it was a trick of the light caused by the moon brightening and brightening outside but Hyunjin’s tattoos appeared to glow with the faintest hint of yellow.

 

“Sever the connection,” Woojin shouted.

 

Hyunjin hollered in frustration, “I’m trying!”

 

Changbin had crossed the impossible length of the hallway now. He was right behind them.

 

He wanted to help Jeongin open the door.

 

Something very important was on the other side. It wanted to be _let in_.

 

Somehow, Hyunjin managed to wrestle Jeongin’s hands off of the doorknob. He hurled the boy to the floor and their bodies sent up a cloud of dust as they landed and rolled.

 

“What is going on?” Jisung squealed from down the hall.

 

Woojin squinted across the unnatural distance between them. “Changbin?” He raised his voice. “Changbin! Don’t!”

 

Changbin didn’t hear him. It was his turn to try to open the door.

 

He needed to open it.

 

He was being called to do so. Yes. Felix was calling him.

 

Changbin’s hand wrapped around the doorknob. It was warm against his skin. The warmth made him happy.

 

He was back home.

 

Everything was wonderful and there wasn’t a bad thing in the world.

 

He had just finished practicing and had nailed his flute solo for the first time since he was assigned the part. He just _had_ to tell Felix! His boyfriend would be so excited!

 

“Changbin! Don’t open it!” That voice was so very far away.

 

But Changbin didn’t listen. He needed to open the door.

 

He was so happy that he forgot to knock. He twisted the handle and pushed open the door. “Felix,” he called out eagerly.

 

Felix was in his office, huddled over a desk stacked high with books and papers. The room smelled like chocolate cake. Minho from the apartment down the hall had baked it and brought it over.

 

Changbin couldn’t have any because he was on a diet.

 

“You won’t believe it,” Changbin called out again. “I did it. I got the solo right. I made it through that tricky arpeggio and didn’t go sharp on the high note!”

 

“I know,” said Felix. He looked up from his work and spun around in his chair. “I heard you.” His eyes shone as a proud smile took over half his face. “Didn’t I say you’d get it right?” He stood up and held out his hand. “Now come here. I want to show you what I’ve been working on.”

 

Changbin felt so happy that he thought his heart might burst. He started to take a step inside the room.

 

He was thrown aside. The wind knocked out of him. Woojin had come up behind him and tackled him out of the way. The illusion broke. Felix’s office wasn’t on the other side of the door but rather a thick, swampy blackness that almost hurt to look at.

 

“Christ, Changbin,” Woojin screamed at him. “You idiot. We nearly lost you!”

 

Hyunjin slammed the door shut with force that couldn’t be natural. Force that made the whole house groan and shudder. Dust and debris spilled from the ceiling. Every window in the house rattled.

 

Silence heavier than anything fell over top of them. Changbin sucked in a deep breath for what felt like the first time in ages. The thickness in the air had dissipated. The strange distortions in the shadows had vanished.

 

It was just an old house in the middle of the woods again.

 

“What just happened,” Jisung whined, his voice paper-thin from fright. “What was that just now? All of that noise? All of that pressure... Why was my dad there?”

 

“Felix,” Changbin choked out. “He was going to show me the progress on his work project. Why did you shut the door?” He wrestled himself free of Woojin’s grasp. “Why did you do that?”

 

“Changbin,” Woojin warned. “Don’t be dumb.”

 

“It’s true,” Changbin raised his voice. “He never lets me in his office but he was about to right then!” He pointed at the closed door, getting worked up and breathless all over again.

 

Hyunjin rolled the sleeve of his coat back down over his arm. His tattoos were just black ink. His face was emotionless and stern. “What are you two kids talking about? There’s no one else here. No dad. No Felix.” His voice sounded stiff, like it hurt to get the words out. He searched his pockets, found his shades and slid them back up his nose, morphing his face into even more of an unreadable mask. “Maybe you two are just tired. You didn’t see anyone because there’s no one to see.”

 

Woojin nodded imperceptibly in Hyunjin’s direction.

 

Hyunjin looked away. “It was just an empty room, you guys.”

 

But Changbin had seen what he’d seen. Felix had congratulated him on getting his tricky solo down after days and days of tireless practice. Felix had been smiling. Smiling brighter than anything Changbin had ever seen.

 

“Changbin,” Woojin leaned right into his face. “What time is it?”

 

Changbin snapped out of his thoughts and checked his watch. “Ten o’clock. Exactly.”

 

Woojin glanced up in Hyunjin’s direction but Hyunjin just faced the clouded glass of the window at the end of the hall. Woojin turned back to Changbin. “Good. It’s over.” He stepped back and sighed as if he had just sat down something extremely heavy. “The water is receding and I don’t think anything got through.”

 

What he said didn’t make any sense. Changbin held a hand to his head.

 

“Is your buddy okay,” Hyunjin asked, turning away from the window.

 

Changbin followed the tall man’s gaze to where the dark-haired boy named Jisung was sprawled out on the dusty wooden floor, his friend’s head cradled in his lap. “I think Jeongin’s just dazed.” As if in response, his friend moaned and cradled his wrist against his chest like it hurt him.

 

“Crisis averted,” said Woojin. He clicked on Changbin’s flashlight which he still held tight in his hands. The bright light chased the shadows away.

 

“Nothing’s clinging,” Hyunjin confirmed, gazing at Jeongin over the top of his shades.

 

“Don’t relax yet. All of us being here still might drag something through the cracks. We should hurry. The wedding ring has to be in the house somewhere.” He was already turning away.

 

Hyunjin brushed past Changbin on his way down the hall. Even the way he walked seemed more closed off than usual.

 

Changbin glanced down at Jisung and Jeongin on the floor. Their clothing was coated in dust. Their flashlights, discarded on the floor nearby, stretched weird-looking shadows across their faces.

 

“Changbin,” Woojin called out from the other end of the hall. “Don’t get separated.”

 

“I’m coming,” he called out in response, but he didn’t immediately move. His attention drifted towards the wooden door in front of him.

 

Changbin couldn’t resist.

 

He stepped forward, twisted open the doorknob and pushed…

 

...but there was nothing on the other side but an empty, dusty room.


	4. Circle

Changbin felt his heart break. He felt the last of his hope shatter.

 

He had just wanted to see Felix!

 

He just wanted to be with him again. He’d been so close.

 

Would things have been so bad if he’d just crossed the room and talked to him? Would that have really been such a terrible thing to do? Felix was _finally_ going to show him the secret thing he’d been putting together for work, the project he’d been chipping away at for weeks and weeks. It probably would have been something deep and impactful because Felix wouldn’t spend so much time on it, wouldn’t stress so much over Changbin interrupting him, if the project wasn’t very important. But Felix had been done with it which meant the two of them could have hugged and talked and laughed like old times if Changbin could have just gotten into the room...

 

But the door had been slammed shut in his face and it was all Woojin’s selfish fault.

 

Changbin put a hand to his chest. The loneliness. It was so cold. It hurt. His heart pounded so hard he got dizzy.

 

“Felix,” he said. His voice was very quiet. He knew the man wouldn’t answer no matter how many times he called out but it wouldn’t hurt to try. “Where did you go?” Changbin stared into the corners of the old house’s empty room. It was probably a bedroom, based on the size. It didn’t look like Felix’s office at all. It was too large. Too many windows. The door was on a different side. Changbin didn’t know how he had gotten the two rooms confused earlier but that didn’t change the fact that Changbin had just caught a whiff of Felix’s favorite cologne. It was so faint, so distant, but it still triggered a partial memory. Night time. A park somewhere. Gentle summer rain. Felix’s hands were warm and small and Changbin loved to hold them, raise them to his mouth and kiss Felix’s fingertips. So he did it. Over and over again until Felix was a giggling mess, rain dripping from the ends of his hair.

 

The memory faded away. Changbin took a step into the room. And then another. And another.

 

Nothing happened.

 

Everything was still. The air didn’t change. He didn’t hear or see or feel Felix.

 

He was alone.

 

He had been left behind all over again.

 

“Felix,” he called out again, just to be sure.

 

Every night, Changbin dreamed about Felix. About his smile and about his nose and about his sparkly eyes and freckled skin. He dreamed about the evenings they spent together. But every morning, he woke up in a world without Felix. In a world without that smile.

 

The reason for his existence was just… gone.

 

“Changbin!” Woojin shouted from the other end of the hall. “We found it. Come on.”

 

With a sigh, Changbin stepped backwards and shut the door to the empty room. It angered him that Woojin still had the nerve to yell and boss him around when, only a minute ago, he’d kept Changbin away from Felix! Even Hyunjin had slammed the door shut and separated Changbin from the only important person in his whole world.

 

He was starting to believe that it was a mistake to believe in them. He shouldn’t have come here. He should have stayed home and cried.

 

Slowly, Changbin turned away from the door. He felt so feeble. There was hardly anything still holding him together.

 

Jisung, the round-cheeked boy, knelt in the dusty hallway. His hands were on Jeongin’s shoulders, massaging gently as if attempting to wake the boy from his dazed stupor. Jisung looked up at Changbin as the man passed by him.

 

“Is he going to be okay,” Changbin wondered. He thought back to the boy’s jerky and unnatural movements while he was trying to open the door earlier. There was no other way to describe that but ‘possessed.’ And, maybe, he had been that way, too. “He’s not hurt, is he?”

 

“He just needs to recharge,” Jisung said. “His powers… We’ve been told that they make him as bright as a lighthouse.” Jisung paused for a long moment and his eyes lost their focus, almost as if he’d forgotten he was speaking to someone. Then he blinked and cleared his throat. “Jeongin attracts all sorts of things. From everywhere. They grab him and use him all of the time.” He glanced down at Jeongin. “I’m used to it.”

 

Changbin said, “You don’t sound used to it.” In fact, Jisung sounded terrified. Breathless. Even right then, he was shaking.

 

“I just…” Jisung struggled for a moment to find his words. “I just have to be okay with the fact that they may not give him back one day.”

 

_They._

 

The ghosts? Were they really that greedy?

 

Changbin sucked in a deep breath. For the first time, he wondered if he was getting himself in the middle of something he had no business stepping foot in.

 

“What did you see?”

 

Jisung had asked it so quietly that Changbin almost hadn’t heard him. “Huh?”

 

“In the room,” Jisung clarified. In his lap, Jeongin groaned and rolled over onto his side, breathing shallowly like he was having a bad dream. It was odd, though. His eyes were open and he blinked and looked around as if he were awake.

 

Changbin started, “I saw-”

 

Woojin called out, “Changbin, come on.”

 

The noise made him jump. Changbin clamped his mouth shut. He was ready for this night to be over. He feared something scary might happen. He turned and started walking again.

 

“What do you think would have happened,” Jisung whispered at his back, “if you had gone into that room?”

 

The answer to that was so easy. “I could have been with Felix again.”

 

The answer seemed to satisfy Jisung. He hummed as if that had been exactly what he was thinking. “Yeah,” he agreed.

 

Changbin turned to look at him. There was a strange expression on Jisung’s face. A blank sort of acceptance. A major truth acknowledged. The light in his eyes dimmed as he got lost in thought. “I think I would have joined Dad, too.”

 

Jeongin sat up suddenly, gasping for air and clutching at his throat. “Oh… God. Oh!” He spun around, looking left and right. “What happened? Where- Jisung, did I...” He spotted Changbin standing over them. He opened his mouth like he wanted to ask something but then his eyes trained on something that seemed to be just to the right of where Changbin stood. Jeongin blinked and then his eyes got really sad. “You keep dragging it behind you.”

 

Changbin looked to his right but there was nothing behind him. Only the wall of the old house.

 

“Isn’t it heavy,” Jeongin asked him. “Aren’t you tired?”

 

That was enough. “I should go,” Changbin said, not in the mood to be teased.

 

“We’re leaving, too,” Jisung stated firmly, but he seemed to be aiming his statement in Jeongin’s direction more than anything.

 

“Did we find it,” Jeongin asked, swaying like he was drunk even as Jisung hoisted him to his feet and held him steady.

 

Jisung shrugged. “I’m not sure.” It sounded like a lie.

 

Jeongin’s frowned. “Disappointing. We came all this way.”

 

Changbin didn’t want to know too much more about what they were talking about so he walked away from the boys and continued down the hall. He didn’t have his flashlight with him so it only took a few more steps for the shadows to press in on him. They were just normal shadows, he tried to remind himself, but his brain twisted everything he saw. The air tightened around him _just enough_ and his breath hitched with panic but then he was around the corner and back in the brightness of a flashlight.

 

Hyunjin and Woojin were crowded in front of a narrow door.

 

Changbin snatched his own flashlight out of Woojin’s hand, feeling immediately safer just by holding it. He turned the light to his left and to his right. Maybe it was just a trick of his mind but the shadows seemed to pull back. The light of the moon seemed to brighten outside, the blue glow catching dust motes in the air.

 

“If you’re going to take the light,” Woojin admonished, “can you at least point it this way? We need it.”

 

“It’s my flashlight,” Changbin huffed, but he aimed the device into the small room they stood in front of. “What’s this?”

 

“A closet,” Hyunjin stated. He stepped to the side to give Changbin a better view. “It’s full of a bunch of traditional clothing.”

 

Changbin aimed his flashlight higher. The clothing had probably been exquisite at some point but now they were ruined. The colors and patterns of the fabric were faded and moth-eaten now. If Changbin looked too fast, the closet appeared to be crammed full of corpses.

 

“The door is so short and is painted the same color as the hall. We missed seeing it earlier,” Woojin explained. “The ring is wedged between the floorboards, Hyunjin.” He pointed close to his shoe. “Can you get it? I probably shouldn’t touch it. Too many memories are attached and I’m already drained.”

 

Hyunjin knelt down and put his hand on the floor. “I can just barely get my fingers around the band.”

 

Changbin looked from one man to the other. He didn’t know why but their calmness angered him. How could they be so indifferent after everything they had just done? After that craziness that had happened at the other end of the hall? They had torn Changbin’s world apart yet had the nerve to not be the least bit apologetic. He could have been reunited with the love of his life but all these guys cared about was some stupid old ring!

 

“Hey,” Hyunjin yelled. He looked up over his shoulder at Changbin. “We kept your soul from being separated from your body!”

 

Changbin blinked at him. He hadn’t said a single word so why was Hyunjin raising his voice at him? Changbin took a step back and tightened his grip on his flashlight just in case he needed to use it as a weapon.

 

“Are you joking?” Hyunjin went through a great deal of effort to lower the volume of his voice. “We’re trying to _help_ you here, you ungrateful piece of-”

 

“Hyunjin,” Woojin cut him off. “Get the ring. That’s the important thing. I’ll handle this.”

 

It took several long seconds but Hyunjin turned away and went back to the delicate job of freeing the wedding ring from its prison between two floorboards without losing it for good beneath the old, rotted flooring.

 

Woojin stepped close, putting his face in Changbin’s face. “Please understand. Whatever you saw on the other side of that door… It didn’t care about you. It didn’t love you. That violent spirit was only using your desperation as an anchor to pull its way through the tear.”

 

“What tear,” Changbin asked, confused. He’d heard that word before, but-

 

“The spirit world and the world of the living… Think of them as layers of fabric sitting on top of each other.” Woojin demonstrated by pressing the palms of his hands together. “And, sometimes, they rub against each other enough that they fray a little bit and tear, causing one world to become superimposed on the other. Psychics like me and Hyunjin... we can see or hear or feel what comes through these tears, but a lot of it is just harmless static noise.” He snapped his fingers as an idea hit him. “We’re like analog radios picking up and broadcasting stray signals.” Woojin made eye contact with Changbin. “Sometimes, like back then, there’s a really deep tear and that’s how other things... get through.”

 

Nothing Woojin said made any sense. It was all gibberish to Changbin. Like Felix attempting to explain his office work or like Changbin’s professor explaining advanced math. Changbin waved his hand in the air as if attempting to physically bat away Woojin’s words. “I don’t care about any of that.” He let his emotions turn his voice high and shrill, completely different from his usual low tone. “Felix was going to show me everything but you knocked me away and slammed the door shut in my face. I hired you to show me Felix. I _paid_ you good money to let me see him so why would you keep me away from him?”

 

His screeching voice echoed up the hallway for a moment before a thick silence settled over the house.

 

Changbin stepped back. “You’re a fraud,” he announced. If there was one thing that made sense to him then, it was that. “Like all of the others. This whole thing-” He waved his arm around to encompass the old house. “-it’s all part of your gimmick, isn’t it? You’re using smoke and mirrors and some paid actors to trick me into handing over more cash.”

 

“Hey, we don’t know those kids,” Hyunjin grunted.

 

“There are no tricks,” Woojin said with a surprising amount of patience. “My gifts are genuine.”

 

“Prove it,” Changbin demanded. “Show me Felix. Right now.”

 

“I can’t do that-” Woojin started.

 

“You’re a fraud,” Changbin cut him off. His throat and chest tightened with emotion. His eyes stung as he fought back tears.

 

“That’s not what my gift allows me to do,” Woojin said. Frustration bled into his voice, making it as sharp as the expression on his face. “I told you before that there’s only one thing I can do.”

 

Changbin’s anger dumped out of him. It wasn’t even relief that came over him but a churning wave of sadness. He knew Felix was gone. He could easily recall the funeral. All of the family members who came to the apartment and offered their condolences and hugs and tasteless food and petty cash gifts. Changbin could remember all of the rice left out to give Felix’s spirit nourishment on his long journey. The numerous prayers to guide Felix’s way. All of the bouquets of mourning flowers sent by well-meaning friends. The flowers had all wilted away within days, much like Changbin himself. They filled the apartment with the sweet stench of rot even after he had thrown them all out.

 

Changbin found himself sobbing and not even for the first time that day. “I miss him so much. He meant the world to me. I loved him. I _love_ him. I wanted- I want to...” He couldn’t even get the rest of the words out.

 

He knew Felix was gone but he couldn’t shake the feeling that Felix was still _here_. Somewhere close.

 

He just wanted to talk to Felix again.

 

And then maybe go with him this time.

 

“You don’t want to go,” said Hyunjin. “Trust me. There’s nothing for you there.”

 

Changbin wiped tears off of his cheeks with his hands. “What? What- what are you talking about?”

 

Woojin inhaled slowly and then let it out through his nose. When he spoke, his breath left his mouth in the faintest fog, reminding Changbin of how deeply cold it was in the house. “You can call me a fraud if you like. You don’t have to believe in me or the things that I can see. That’s understandable. I just need you to know that nothing good would have happened if you had stepped through that door back then.”

 

“I would have been with Felix,” Changbin said, still choking on his tears. He bit his bottom lip to fight the rest of them back. “We would have been together again.”

 

“Maybe so,” said Woojin in a small voice. “Maybe you would have. Just… not in the way that you think you want.”

 

Approaching footsteps caused the floorboards to groan.

 

Changbin whirled around and aimed his flashlight down the hall just in time to spot Jeongin’s pale, sweaty face at the corner. Jisung was right behind him, supporting the majority of Jeongin’s weight on his shoulder.

 

“Is he alright,” Woojin called out. “That spirit had quite the grip on him.”

 

Jisung opened his mouth.

 

“I’m fine,” Jeongin answered for himself.

 

The two younger boys made their slow, shuffling way up the hall. The both of them looked drained of all energy, as if simply walking took up every ounce of strength they had left.

 

“Did you see anyone,” Changbin blurted out.

 

The two of them stopped. Jeongin looked up at him with eyebrows raised in surprise.

 

“Who was waiting for you on the other side of the door,” Changbin had to know.

 

“We’re going to go,” Jisung said quickly, stopping the discussion in its tracks. With sudden speed, he half-carried Jeongin farther down the hallway and then hoisted Jeongin up towards a windowsill near the house’s front door. It must have been the way they came in. Jeongin grunted with effort as he lifted up the window frame. Then he crawled beneath it, holding it up on his shoulder. He held out a hand for Jisung and, with a coordinated effort, the two of them clambered through the window and jumped to the ground outside. As soon as Jisung let go of the frame, the window slid down shut with a bang. The glass in one of the lower panes cracked in half and immediately let in the low, howling noise of the wind.

 

“They must do what we do,” Hyunjin stated, referring to how smoothly they had gotten through the window. “Maybe they don’t look for lost things in the same way that we do but they are definitely searching for _something_ that’s on the other side.”

 

“No other reason why they’d come all the way out here,” said Woojin. “That Jeongin kid… He had to have sensed there would be a tear here and came running.”

 

Changbin was confused. There were more layers to this than he’d been expecting. All he had wanted was to find Felix but now he was getting in over his head.

 

In the quiet, Changbin heard the engine of the car outside start up.

 

“Got it,” Hyunjin exclaimed, standing up. He shouldered his way between the other men and held up the wedding ring on his palm. The displeased look on his face spoke volumes. “This is _it_?” He delicately poked the ring with a finger like it was a bug he was examining. “Are you sure?”

 

Woojin stepped close to him, took a moment to look at the ring and then nodded. “It’s what I saw. This is the ring attached to that box.” He wiped at his eyes. He very suddenly looked completely exhausted. Dark circles had crept under his eyes just in the last few moments.

 

Changbin leaned around Hyunjin’s shoulder to get a better look at the ring in question. It was extremely simple. Not necessarily _cheap_ but definitely quite understated considering the family’s obvious wealth. Even the diamond was just an average size with a minimalistic cut.

 

“I know what you’re thinking,” Hyunjin mumbled, turning towards him, “and I assure you that, for many people, tradition and sentimentality have more value than cash.”

 

“We should get back to town,” Woojin gasped out. “We’ve got the ring. We can call her up and maybe even get the money tonight.”

 

Hyunjin whistled impressively. “Hello, rent payment.”

 

“What about the bridge,” Changbin spoke up. “That was the whole point of me waiting for you guys tonight.” He’d be damned if they sent him home empty handed after dealing with all of this!

 

Woojin repeated, “the bridge.” He must have entirely forgotten. “Right, the bridge. What time is it?”

 

“Too close to midnight to be fooling with something serious,” warned Hyunjin. He tightened his fingers around the ring and shoved his fist into his pocket. “And don’t forget the full moon.”

 

“What’s that supposed to mean,” Changbin bellowed. “Are you saying we aren’t going? Are you admitting you cheated me out of all of that money?”

 

“We’re a lot of things but we aren’t thieves,” said Woojin.

 

The phrase must have made something click in Hyunjin’s head. “Shit. I left that book back in the bathroom.”

 

Woojin smirked, “I told you not to take it to begin with.”

 

Their nonchalance just added fuel to Changbin’s temper. He should have known this was all too good to be true. Woojin had sweet talked him over the phone, made him pay up in advance and then lured him out into the middle of nowhere to scare him and maybe even kill him. They never had any intention of helping him find Felix. They had played Changbin just like all of the other so-called psychics he’d gone to over the last several weeks.

 

“Let’s go to the bridge,” said Hyunjin, his mood changing instantly.

 

“What,” Woojin turned towards him with his eyes wide and his mouth open in shock. “Are you serious?”

 

“Yes.” Hyunjin took off his shades and looked Changbin in the eye.

 

It was an unsettling, chilling feeling. Changbin could see his reflection in Hyunjin’s eyes about as clearly as he could while the man was wearing his shades… but there was something _off_ about what he was seeing. Very briefly, Changbin thought he saw a very large and very heavy object wrapped tight around his shoulders like chains.

 

Then it was all gone. Hidden behind Hyunjin’s shades again as he slipped them back across his nose.

 

Changbin felt lightheaded. He felt naked and exposed. He didn’t know exactly how, but he had the feeling that Hyunjin had just seen a part of him that even he couldn’t reach. He had to lean against the wall to keep from falling over.

 

Hyunjin mumbled something, so lowly and so quickly that Changbin could not hear it over the rush of his pulse in his ears.

 

Whatever he said had Woojin convinced. The psychic cleared his throat and said, “Let’s go to the bridge.”


	5. Memento Mori

Snow fell in thick, white flakes. It clumped up on the windshield faster than the crappy wipers could smear them away. The lack of visibility turned the road home, a way that should have been safe and familiar, into a journey that felt treacherous and foreign. Every hill felt new. Every curve was an unpleasant surprise looming up out of the darkness. Changbin kept his grip on the steering wheel tight. His eyes never left the road.

 

“I think you can go a little bit faster,” Felix mumbled from the passenger seat. “It’ll be morning before we’re back.”

 

“I can barely see in front of me,” Changbin stated. The headlights were on but they didn’t reveal much. The world beyond the windshield was an indistinct void. The blackness at the beginning of the universe. “I’m not gonna go much faster than this so deal with it.” In fact, Changbin was tempted to pull over and sit them at the side of the road until the storm let up. He’d felt the tires slip on ice and nearly yank the steering wheel out of his hands one too many times for comfort already. If his mother knew what he was doing, she’d smack him over the head.

 

“I’ll drive,” Felix suggested, half-joking.

 

“You’ll kill us,” Changbin laughed.

 

Felix made a dissatisfied noise at the back of his throat and then fiddled with the radio. He turned the knob from static to static to static until some smooth-voiced, late-night radio announcer came on. The topic of discussion? Soulmates. And was there actual math to prove their existence?

 

“Can you turn that down,” Changbin asked. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

 

Felix obliged him. He turned the volume down until the only noise in the car was the whine of the engine and the whirr of the windshield wipers.

 

Changbin could smell Felix. A touch of his cologne under the mild musk from a day spent riding in the car. In the backseat, a huge bag of mildly overripe navel oranges flooded the car with a sour, citrusy, almost alcoholic smell.

 

“Did you have fun?” Changbin asked. “Be honest.”

 

“Of course,” Felix said.

 

“You sure? I know you hate being away from your work for too long.”

 

“I had a good time,” Felix nearly interrupted him. “Your mom’s great. The mountains are nice this time of year.” He kept his gaze out the passenger window. They were way out in the countryside. The two-lane road was narrow and rough and they hadn’t seen the lights of a house in nearly an hour. “But I miss the city. Can’t wait to get back.”

 

The two of them shouldn’t have been out on the road at this time of night anyways. They’d known about the incoming snowstorm all day. Even Changbin’s mother had suggested they stay in town another day. Really, there was no harm with spending another night at the motel but Felix always got cranky when he couldn’t sleep in his own bed for more than a night or two and even Changbin was reaching the limits of his patience dealing with Felix’s short temper and anxious fidgeting.

 

“You know,” Changbin struck up conversation again, “my mom really loves you.”

 

“Honestly?” Felix threw his head back and cackled. “She fussed and nitpicked at me the entire weekend.”

 

“That means she cares,” Changbin told him. “She doesn’t say anything to anybody half the time.” He thought back to his numerous exes and how he’d brought most of them by his mom’s house, seeking her approval. She wasn’t necessarily _mean_ but if she didn’t like someone, she ignored them. Even if they were over for dinner at her house. “She pays you all of that attention because she enjoys your company and likes having you around.”

 

Felix shook his head, unable to believe it. “Or maybe it’s because I bribed her with gourmet chocolate? That expensive stuff with the hazelnuts.”

 

“That definitely helped,” Changbin admitted.

 

They both laughed and the tension in the car eased.

 

Changbin let himself relax a little. His mother _adored_ Felix. That much was obvious the first time Changbin had brought him to the old, mountainside village where he grew up. After a tense, one-sided conversation, Changbin’s mother warmed up to Felix. Invited him to take a dip in the communal hot spring. Offered to bake him cake. And that was just within the first hour of their visit!

 

Even Jeongyeon, who was smart and pretty and charming and putting herself through med school, didn’t earn the respect of Changbin’s mother that quickly. Changbin wasn’t sure what was so different with Felix than with all of his other dates, but if his mom so warmly approved, did he really want to question it?

 

“I bet she’s nice to everyone,” Felix decided. He glanced up at Changbin. “And you tell me all of those stories to scare me.”

 

“No, no, I’m serious,” Changbin insisted. “She might be fussy and get on your nerves but it’s better than the cold shoulder.”

 

Felix, still unconvinced, ran a hand through his hair and looked back out the window. “If you say so.”

 

“Maybe,” Changbin squeaked out. This was something he’d been thinking about for weeks now but right at that moment was the first time he had ever voiced it aloud, even when he was by himself at the apartment. “Maybe,” he started again, “she’s just ready for you to be her son-in-law.”

 

Felix, who had been bouncing his leg in an attempt to burn off nervous energy, went completely still. He slowly turned his head and looked at Changbin but didn’t say a single word.

 

When the silence stretched thin, Changbin risked looking over at him. Felix sat in the passenger seat wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Speechlessness? Joy? Changbin burned the beautiful image of Felix’s expression into his brain and turned back to look at the road.

 

“Changbin,” Felix started. His voice was thin and light. “What…” He took a second to compose himself. “What did... you just say?”

 

He didn’t sound happy.

 

Changbin’s heart raced. His hands went numb. The whole world felt like it had stopped spinning and now he was being flung forward, right out of the windshield and on and on and on. Had he misinterpreted the look on Felix’s face? Perhaps his eyes were wide not with happiness but with a heavier, thicker emotion. Something Changbin wasn’t brave enough to name. He swallowed hard. He racked his brain for an explanation. He was tired. Yeah, that worked. It was a joke! Or… he’d gotten his words all mixed up. Right? “Felix,” he said, attempting to smooth things over. “Look, I didn’t mean-”

 

“Hey,” Felix’s voice was suddenly sharp. He pointed out of the front windshield towards the big, wooden bridge they were approaching. “Do you see that? In front of us?”

 

Changbin squinted through the flurry of snow.

 

There were headlights coming towards them. Distant but approaching fast.

 

“Is he in our lane?” Felix questioned, leaning up over the car’s dashboard. “Something doesn’t feel right.”

 

“He’s swerving,” Changbin noticed.

 

That much was clear now that he was paying more attention. The headlights swayed back and forth, back and forth, almost hypnotically. The lights grew brighter and bluer as they got closer.

 

Felix leaned back in his seat. His voice rose up an octave in fright, “It’s an eighteen-wheeler."

 

They had reached the same conclusion at the exact same time: disaster was imminent.

 

“Changbin.” Felix reached out a hand and grabbed Changbin’s thigh, digging his fingernails in so sharply that Changbin yelped. “He’s headed right for us!”

 

It was like being woken from a dream. Yanked into a cruel and harsh reality. Changbin sat up straight in his seat and readjusted his hands on the wheel. “It’s going to be okay,” he said with confidence that he didn’t feel.

 

Felix’s anxiety was palpable. He was bouncing all over the place. “Changbin! Do something. We’re going to get hit!”

 

Changbin glanced around them, peering through the windows in an attempt to form a plan of action. The car was on the bridge now, too, sharing a tiny amount of space with the out of control truck. There was no shoulder to pull off on. No other lane to cross into. There was just a flimsy wooden guardrail and headlights.

 

“Changbin,” Felix screamed. His voice was a mess of emotions. “Lord!” He started to sob. “God, please. Please. No!”

 

Changbin pushed on the brakes. Too hard. Or maybe not hard enough. Either way, the brakes were useless. They did nothing. There was a grinding noise from underneath them as the tires attempted to stop spinning but the car continued to move forward. Their back end started to swing out into the middle of the road and Changbin fought with the wheel tooth and nail to keep them in their lane. Would it even be enough?

 

“Changbin,” Felix squealed. He was nothing but panic now. Energy unleashed. “Tell me this isn’t happening!” He dug his fingernails into Changbin’s thigh with one hand and slapped the dashboard with the other. “Oh my god, oh my god. Please!”

 

Changbin could hear the truck’s horn blaring at them now. Rapid-fire taps as the driver tried to warn them.

 

It was too late. Too late.

 

There was no stopping this.

 

There was no place to go. There was no way their little car would be able to get out of the way.

 

“Felix,” Changbin shrieked. “Felix!”

 

Felix was crying his eyes out. His nose was all snotty. Tears fell down his cheeks in streams. His low voice came out of his throat a broken, hoarse mess. “Changbin… We’re going to die. We’re going to _die_. Changbin!”

 

That’s when the terror really hit.

 

They were going to die.

 

“No!” Changbin yelled. “God, no!”

 

Why now? Why _now_ ? Their lease was nearly up and the two of them had only this weekend decided to move to a bigger place. Changbin had cemented his spot as first chair flute in the national symphony orchestra and had just been given his first solo. In a few month’s time, he would be on _tour_.

 

After all of these years of hard work and he was only just now being recognized for his talent. He was _just_ starting to get his life together. But…

 

He was going to lose everything.

 

He was going to die. And it was probably going to hurt.

 

“I love you.” Changbin’s own eyes were watering now, blurring his vision and turning everything beyond the windshield into nothing but two bright, unfeeling headlights here to take them away. “I love you so much, Felix.”

 

“Changbin,” Felix wailed again. He let go of Changbin’s thigh to rock madly against his seat like he was attempting to hurl himself from the car. “Changbin!”

 

“You’re the best thing to ever happen to me,” Changbin choked out between sobs. “I love you more than anything. I really do.”

 

“Changbin!” Felix cried. It wasn’t even clear if he was hearing anything Changbin said. “Oh my god, we’re going to die. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.” His hands flailed around, scratching at the glass of the passenger window, digging into the armrest, punching the dashboard.

 

He couldn’t stop moving.

 

Time seemed to slow. The bridge stretched and stretched impossibly long.

 

The truck was right on top of them yet still so far away.

 

Changbin took his eyes off the road and blinked rapidly. The brightness of the headlights had become too much. It was like staring into the sun. Staring into death itself. He looked over at Felix. The man’s face was completely washed out by the headlights. Changbin could barely make out his eyes, the shape of his nose, the curve of his mouth. All he could really see, all he could really focus on, were the tears streaming down Felix’s face.

 

He wanted to reach out and wipe them away.

 

One last time.

 

There was the catastrophic noise of metal against metal. Shattering glass. Screams. Screeching tires.

 

There was pain so sharp it took Changbin’s breath away.

 

There was color, light, sound.

 

All of it terrifying. All of it big. All of it _final_.

 

Changbin’s entire world ended.

 

“Changbin.”

 

He snapped out of it, screaming screaming screaming.

 

“Changbin,” the voice came again, more firmly.

 

The memories fell apart, dissolving between Changbin’s fingers like grains of sand.

 

“Christ on a stick,” Hyunjin shrieked from the driver’s seat.

 

Changbin wrapped his arms around himself for warmth and safety. He was still inside his old car, spinning and spinning across the ice. The wooden guardrail was suddenly in the headlights, tearing the windshield apart. “Felix,” he croaked out. His throat was so sore and dry. He must have been screaming for a long, long time.

 

“Easy, easy,” Hyunjin called out to him, reminding him that he was safe. “We’re okay.”

 

“Sorry,” Changbin said meekly. Adrenaline raced through his limbs and numbed his fingers and toes. “It’s just…” He could barely manage to look out of the windshield. “It’s just the first time I’ve been here… since then.”

 

Hyunjin’s car had stopped moving ages ago but it still felt like they were moving. Being moved. Being crushed and spun around and flipped over.

 

“Easy,” Hyunjin said again, noticing the faraway look in Changbin’s eyes. He reached across the seat to tightly grab Changbin’s wrist. His hand was large and uncomfortably hot on Changbin’s clammy skin but the contact helped chase the majority of the nightmare away.

 

Woojin’s car was parked on the side of the road directly ahead of them and Changbin watched in a daze as the psychic got out and walked towards where they were parked.

 

As the man approached, Hyunjin pressed a button to roll the driver’s side window down.

 

“Is he alright,” Woojin asked, leaning into the car. His face was serious and his tone was emotionless. “I heard him screaming before I even got out of the car.”

 

“Sorry,” Changbin apologized again. Sure, the memories came and went but they were usually just flashes. “It doesn’t always get this bad.”

 

“Must be the lingering energy,” Hyunjin diagnosed. He slid his shades farther up his nose. “Unlike that old house, something heinous _did_ happen here. And not all that long ago. The emotion is all fresh and raw and just sitting on top of everything.”

 

“It does feel a little _swampy_ ,” Woojin agreed. “You sure this is still a good idea?”

 

Hyunjin nodded. “I can do it.”

 

Changbin was slipping back into his headspace. Hyunjin’s tight grip on his arm reminded him too much of Felix’s hand digging into his flesh. A sight or a smell usually triggered the memories. He didn’t know a touch could, too. Just like that, he was back in that horrible night. Changbin was trapped in the car as it was smashed through the bridge’s wooden guardrail by the truck. He could feel gravity completely give up on him as the car dropped through the air. Faster and faster. Everything slowed down as the car fell into the rushing river. As the current swept them away.

 

“Felix,” he screamed as the windows cracked open and cold, icy water gushed in. “Felix, please. Open your eyes!”

 

“Changbin!” Now it was Woojin’s voice yanking him out of his trance. The psychic turned to Hyunjin. “I knew this was a bad idea. The full moon’s amplifying everything. We won’t even be able to step in it.”

 

“It’ll be fine,” Hyunjin snapped. He rummaged in the front pocket of his trench coat for his pack of cigarettes. “He’ll call us frauds for the rest of his life if we don’t do this tonight.”

 

“Does that matter?” Woojin asked. “We know what our capabilities are.”

 

“He already paid,” Hyunjin hit him with reason.

 

“The full moon,” Woojin shot back. “And midnight’s right around the corner. The freshness of the energy here. This is going to be a disaster. What if all of the weight he carries across his shoulders drags you down somewhere I can’t save you? What if-”

 

Hyunjin cut him off, “It’s your fault we’re so late.”

 

Woojin flattened his mouth into a firm, displeased line.

 

“You were supposed to have the ring found before I got there, remember?”

 

“That’s not-”

 

“Remember?”

 

The two of them fell into silence but with the heated way they glared at each other, Changbin got the distinct sense that their argument somehow continued.

 

Changbin stared out the front windshield of Hyunjin’s sports car at the bridge that lay ahead of them. He really hadn’t been out here since the accident. He’d been too afraid to even come down this road. Just _looking_ at the bridge made his hands shake. Made his body ache with pain he hadn’t felt since he’d been discharged from the hospital.

 

Unable to take it anymore, he unbuckled his seatbelt, threw open the car door and rushed out into the freezing, dark night. It was almost like he couldn’t control himself. He just ran and ran.

 

The bridge was larger than he remembered. Wider. It sat higher above the water than he remembered. It was familiar but different. Worse than his nightmares.

 

Yet, as sickly as it made him feel inside, the bridge itself was no worse for wear. The only sign that an accident had even occurred here was the section of guardrail that was built from lighter, newer wood than the rest. Changbin rushed up to the rail and peered over the side.

 

The river was so so so far down. The rushing current turned white and frothy around the bridge’s support beams.

 

Looking at it like this, Changbin didn’t know how he got out of this mess alive. How had he lived through such a fall? How had he managed to get to shore? How had he survived half the night out here somewhere, soaking wet and freezing in the snow? Even the doctors were amazed that he’d gotten through the whole thing with surprisingly minor cuts and pulled muscles. But Changbin shouldn’t have survived something like that.

 

He shouldn’t be alive.

 

He shouldn’t.

 

Changbin propped a foot up on the guardrail and started to pull himself up.

 

Strong arms wrapped around his middle and bodily removed him from the bridge’s railing. “You do _not_ want to do that,” Hyunjin’s voice was hot and angry in his ear.

 

“Why not,” Changbin screeched. He’d started crying again. The guilt was too much. It crushed him. It made him sick. “We were going to be together forever. Why can’t I be with him?” He struggled in Hyunjin’s arms. Kicked and punched at whatever part of the taller man he could reach.

 

“Stop it, Changbin,” Woojin commanded, suddenly standing in front of him. “There’s no way you’ll come back from that.”

 

“He didn’t deserve to die,” Changbin wailed.

 

Woojin’s voice remained low and calm like the doctors who tended to him during his hospital stay. “No one decent does. Put him down, Hyunjin.”

 

Hyunjin let go of him very suddenly and Changbin fell into an undignified heap on the ground.

 

“Be grateful you’re alive,” Woojin said. “Being alive means you can move on. Forgive yourself. Forge new paths. You’ll never forget this pain but it’ll ease. Dying, though…” He waved a hand in the direction of the guardrail that Changbin had very nearly threw himself over. “Ghosts are nothing but emotion. Nothing but anger or sadness or pain. It’s just constant for them. Unlike the living, they can’t go forward.”

 

Changbin curled into the fetal position on the ground, still bawling his eyes out. “He must be in so much pain. Felix… He was so scared. I still hear his screams.” Changbin choked back a sob. “I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t be over there alone.”

 

“Changbin,” Woojin snapped.

 

“Let him grieve,” Hyunjin stopped him. “Unlike you, he still has emotions.”

 

Woojin didn’t take too kindly to this. He stepped forward and punched Hyunjin in the shoulder. “We can’t do this tonight. Look at him! He’ll drag us all in like this.”

 

Changbin couldn’t stand to listen to their fighting. He just wanted to see Felix. He just wanted to be with him again. Hold him and hug him and wipe away his tears. Tell him everything will be alright and that there was no need to cry because they were together now. Regret clawed at him. “We never should have left the motel,” he bargained. “We should have stayed until the morning. I never-” The words wouldn’t even come out, he was crying so hard. He couldn’t even see his hands in front of his own face. “I never got to hear you say you loved me.”

 

If only they had more time. If only they had made better decisions. Been better people. Made less mistakes.

 

If only…

 

If only!

 

Changbin dragged himself to his feet. He blinked his tears away just enough to catch sight of the guardrail off to his left. He made a run for it.

 

Big hands caught him by the sleeve of his coat and yanked him backwards. His feet swung out from under him and he fell on his back so hard that all of his breath was knocked out of his lungs.

 

Hyunjin stood over him, breathless and panting and misty-eyed. “His head is just a pitch-dark whirlpool.”

 

More cryptic mess that Changbin couldn’t understand.

 

Woojin stepped into Changbin’s field of view, his hands shoved into his pockets and his white scarf billowing in a sudden wind. “Is it the heavy emotion in the area making him do that?”

 

Hyunjin readjusted his shades. “No. That’s all him.”

 

“Good grief. I thought this would be a simple case.”

 

“Jesus, Woojin,” Hyunjin raised his voice. “Just _shut up_. For once!”

 

Silence fell over them. The only noise was the rushing river far below them and Changbin’s stop-and-start, snot-nosed weeping.

 

“Changbin…” Hyunjin began, squatting next to the man. “Listen to me. You are going to die.”

 

Woojin spoke up, “Hyunjin-”

 

“Let me finish,” Hyunjin yelled. Then, in a much softer voice, he repeated, “You are going to die, Changbin.”

 

The man sounded so sure of it. Changbin found himself oddly pleased with the prospect. If he could just see Felix again, everything would be alright. He just wanted to make Felix smile and laugh again. He just wanted to hold Felix’s hand. Anything, and he really meant this, anything would be a better image of Felix to carry in his head then that look of sheer, teary-eyed dread that haunted Changbin’s every second of restless sleep.

 

Hyunjin’s voice floated down to him from very far away. “You are going to die. Maybe not tonight but eventually. Maybe in fifteen years or in eighty. You won’t know when it’ll happen. Or where. But you’ll die.”

 

Woojin tried again, “Hyunjin, how is this-”

 

“Trust me,” Hyunjin snapped. The tattooed man leaned down even closer to Changbin, his mouth right up against Changbin’s ear. “Picture this. Really imagine it. You’re going to die. You have all of these goals and dreams but it’ll all mean nothing when death comes for you. It could be an accident or an attack or your own body just quitting on you, but you’ll die and there’s nothing you can do about it. There’s absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. It’ll just happen and that’ll be it. That’ll be _it_ , Changbin.”

 

His words moved something deep within Changbin. It stirred up some primal, instinctual fear in him.

 

A coldness settled in his heart as the sheer _size_ of Hyunjin’s words towered over him. There would come a day when he would go to sleep and never wake up. There would come a day when all of his misery would end but so, too, would his happiness end. His life would be forfeit and there would be nothing left behind but dust and flowers.

 

Changbin sat up quickly, nearly smashing his forehead against Hyunjin’s. He got up on shaky legs and ran. Not towards the guardrail but off of the bridge. Away from the great height. His heart was beating so hard that it felt like it was in his throat. He didn’t stop running until he threw himself in to the passenger seat of Hyunjin’s car and slammed the door shut like death was a thing with teeth and claws and glowing eyes that had come out of the woods to hunt him down.

 

He sat in the seat. Adrenaline raced through his veins with such potency that it felt like he could vibrate right out of his skin. His chest heaved. His lungs burned. Sweat soaked his forehead and made his dark hair stick to the sides of his face.

 

He didn't want to die. He didn’t want to die!

 

He rubbed at his arms like it was something that he could wipe off of his body.

 

His stomach twisted so hard that he thought he might vomit.

 

Now he understood why Felix was so frightened. He still hated that the last thing he would ever remember about his life with the man was how scared he was, how violently afraid he was, but at least now Changbin understood why.

 

There was nothing after this.

 

“Hey,” Hyunjin said, leaning through the driver’s side window. “We wouldn’t be in business if there was _nothing_.”

 

Changbin’s teeth chattered as the chill of the night air dragged across the salt trails on his cheeks. “What are you talking about?”

 

Hyunjin clarified, “I’m saying that we’re going to do what you hired us to do.”

 

Suddenly, the passenger door opened. Changbin whirled around, letting out the tiniest yelp. Woojin stood there, his hand on the car door and his eyebrows furrowed. His mouth was downturned in a frown but it seemed like his foul mood was no longer aimed directly at Changbin. A minor relief. Woojin cleared his throat and announced, “We’re going to find your boyfriend.”


	6. Danse Macabre

There was no longer any sign in the sky that it had stormed that night. The dark rain clouds had receded, leaving behind a cold expanse of blackness dotted with the faintest pinpricks of starlight. Maybe on some other night, it all would have been beautiful. A reminder of the strangeness and wonder of the universe. Tonight, though, looking up at the sky only made Changbin feel small. Insignificant. Like everything he thought or felt, anything he did, would change nothing about the world.

 

It troubled him that he couldn’t remember if Felix liked starry skies or not.

 

“Are you sure you can do this, Hyunjin,” Woojin asked. He had walked the furthest ahead. The moonlight catching the white of his scarf turned him into a distant, blurry specter.

 

“Now’s a bit too late to ask,” Hyunjin shot back. He took a moment to swing his leg over a tree root jutting up out of the ground. Then he swung the other leg over. “But as long as I get close to the place where he died, I should be able to pull him out.”

 

“He’s not…” Changbin attempted to follow Hyunjin over the gnarled tree root but didn’t quite have the height. He crawled beneath it instead, coating his hands and knees in mud and grime. “He’s not… there anymore.” Felix had long since been buried.

 

Hyunjin helped Changbin to his feet once he’d crawled beneath the root. “Well, I’m not pulling him out of the water.”

 

Changbin shuddered. It felt so strange to be coming back here. To be walking straight towards the place where he’d nearly lost his life.

 

Woojin came up towards them. “How much farther, Changbin?”

 

“We’re close,” Changbin answered.

 

The trio had left the wooden bridge and the lonely country road far behind them and were making their slow and measured way down the steep, rocky hillside to the river’s edge below. The farther down they went, the cooler the air got and the thicker the fog in the air became. The last time Changbin was out here, he’d been half-frozen from the icy waters and the frigid wind. He’d been delirious with grief and panic and terror. There had been paramedics rushing about. Police officers shouting into radios. A helicopter high above, its searchlight probing the frothy waters for any signs of the sunken car. There had been nothing but noise and flashing lights. Colors. Pain. Now there was only quiet.

 

Stillness.

 

Changbin was far from poetic, but crawling down the hillside felt like a descent into hell.

 

Changbin gripped the handle of his flashlight a little harder but it only made the tremors in his hands more apparent as the circle of light wavered and wavered in front of them.

 

There was a thump and then Hyunjin cursed.

 

Changbin swung his flashlight in the man’s direction. Hyunjin must have dislodged a fist-sized rock from the slanted ground with his shoe. The three of them watched and listened as the rock rolled and rolled down the rest of the hill. The splash of it hitting the water was almost entirely disguised by the constant noise of the river’s churning current.

 

“Watch your step,” said Woojin. “Don’t let the fog play tricks on your perception.”

 

Changbin took a moment to stare at his shoes, being extra careful to place his feet where the muddy ground looked the sturdiest. If any of them slipped and fell here, if any of them got swept away by the water…

 

“Changbin,” Woojin urged. “The light. You can’t point it at the ground.”

 

Changbin raised the flashlight, forcing himself to look at the path ahead of them. “Should we wait until dawn,” he wondered. He was shaking like a leaf. He wasn’t brave enough for this!

 

“Daylight keeps the spirits away,” Woojin stated. “Warm ground is more difficult to traverse.”

 

Changbin swallowed hard but kept putting one foot in front of the other.

 

It was tough going. The minimal light from Changbin’s flashlight was far from enough to illuminate the slippery downward path. Even the glow of the full moon did little to shine light into the corners and crevices between the trees. The fog stayed low to the ground, swirling around their knees in white, billowing wisps.

 

No matter how many times Changbin blinked, the shadows seemed to move and crawl towards him. He could almost _feel_ them rake over his skin and drag at his clothes.

 

Changbin stumbled. The fog had obscured the path and he hadn’t seen the narrow hole in the ground. Woojin’s hand on his wrist kept him from tumbling. Changbin squeaked out, “Thank you.” Really. What were they doing out here, fumbling around in the dark? “Thank you for everything.”

 

Woojin didn’t respond. His eyes were glazed over like he was looking through Changbin to somewhere else.

 

Hyunjin walked up to them. “Woojin?” His gaze landed on Woojin’s hand wrapped tight around Changbin’s wrist. Wrapped tight around Changbin’s watch. “Shit.”

 

“What? What is it?” Changbin questioned. His curiosity turned to panic. “He’s squeezing so hard. He’s hurting me.”

 

“Shit,” Hyunjin repeated. He had to use both hands to pry Woojin’s large fingers off of Changbin’s tiny wrist.

 

Almost immediately, Woojin seemed to be himself again. He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “Goodness,” he whispered.

 

Changbin realized what had happened. Woojin’s abilities must have triggered when he touched his most prized possession.

 

“Yeah,” Hyunjin confirmed, “he was eyeball deep in the memories of that watch.”

 

Self-consciously, Changbin wrapped his hand around the watch as if to block it from Woojin’s view. “What did you see?” It almost felt like an invasion of privacy.

 

Woojin took a moment to compose himself. “A field of purple flowers.”

 

It didn’t make sense at first. It almost sounded to Changbin like complete nonsense but then the memory surfaced at the back of his mind. Something small opening inside of him petal by delicate petal. A day trip in the car. Felix getting car sick. Changbin pulling over onto the side of some winding back road. A field of purple flowers. Felix’s arms wrapped around Changbin’s waist and his mouth pressed to Changbin’s neck.

 

“I promise,” Woojin said, leaning in close to him. It was as if he could also feel the longing in Changbin’s chest. “We’ll find what you lost. We’ll show it to you.”

 

Changbin couldn’t hold the eye contact long. He looked away hurriedly. He knew Felix was gone. Dead. He knew that! He’d read it in the newspapers. He’d heard it in whispered voices while he rested at the hospital. He’d heard it between heart wrenching sobs at the funeral. He’d seen the horror of it again and again, but-

 

If only Changbin could go back… If only he could change things. Be different. Do better.

 

“Keep going forward, Changbin,” Hyunjin said. “Don’t stop looking ahead of you.”

 

Right. They had to get moving again. They had stopped for too long.

 

Changbin raised his flashlight and squinted into the dark of the night. He only just managed to see the bottom of the hill, the roar of the river rushing past them was like thunder. With every step he took, he feared the ground would shift from underneath him and send him toppling back into those chilly depths. Just thinking about it made him shiver and ache. It really made him consider the fact that he’d fought for his life out here, wrestling himself out of the car window and barely managing to claw himself to shore. He’d been soaked through out here. Lying on the ground and shivering in the snow, feeling his heartbeat slow and slow. He really didn’t know how he’d survived. How he’d made it out of such a violent, horrifying mess with only scratches. That night… it had been the truck driver, still safe and uninjured on the bridge, who had called the authorities and gotten Changbin out of that cold underworld. The man had saved Changbin’s life but had doomed Felix’s. Changbin was alive but at what cost? Even now, after all of this time, after the countless nights of trying to convince himself to be thankful that he’d lived, Changbin still wished that the truck driver had died and that Felix was alive in his place.

 

His brain exploded the possibility of new universes in front of his eyes. In one, he and Felix had stayed with Changbin’s mother one more evening. Spent an hour in the hot spring and combined their efforts to make dinner for half the neighborhood.

 

In another universe, when they had stopped at that tiny little gas station at the foot of the mountain, Felix had filled the car’s gas tank up all of the way instead of compulsively stopping the pump at an unnecessarily precise amount. It had added a minute to their travel time, but that one minute had kept them off of the bridge at the same time as that swerving truck.

 

What if Changbin had never asked Felix to marry him? Would either of them had seen the swerving truck any sooner?

 

Why couldn’t some other car have gotten hit? Why couldn’t some other family be ruined?

 

“Hey, it gets really slippery here,” Hyunjin warned. “Watch where you put your feet.”

 

Changbin tightened his grip on the root of a tree growing between two boulders and used it as a handhold to ease himself down onto a tiny little ledge in the hillside. Perhaps hillside was a bit too generous. It was more like a cliff with how sheer of a vertical drop the landscape took. Changbin at least knew the reason for that. After winter, all of the melting snow from the mountain flooded the river and it would rise and rise until it reached this high up the banks.

 

But winter hadn’t quite released its hold on the mountain this year.

 

The floods had yet to come.

 

“Is it this way,” Woojin asked from quite a ways below them. He had long since stopped caring about his nice coat. Both of the sleeves were heavily soiled from their impromptu hike. Even the scarf, once pristine and white and gorgeous, was now a torn up, ragged mess. “Are you sure it was this way?”

 

“I’m positive,” Changbin shouted over the howl of the rapids. The full moon overhead lit up the fog and put a matte wash of light over everything. Regardless, he remembered seeing that drooping tree with its diseased, white branches hanging into the water. He remembered that ghostly white cross shoved into the rocky dirt, marking the location where someone else had probably died along the riverside. Changbin said, “The firemen used a rope ladder to get down to me. The ground at the bottom was flat and muddy like a bog or something.”

 

“It must have been so scary,” Hyunjin mumbled, putting a hand on Changbin’s shoulder.

 

Changbin didn’t want his pity. He swatted the man’s concerned hand away and continued to climb down to the river’s edge. “You wouldn’t know. You wouldn’t even be able to imagine it.”

 

Hyunjin opened his mouth to say something but then paused with the words at the tip of his tongue. At long last, he decided to clamp his mouth shut and silently resume his climb down the steep cliffside.

 

“I’m at the bottom,” Woojin announced.

 

Changbin swung his flashlight one way and then the other, revealing the top of Woojin’s head and the river’s uneven, rocky riverbank. Changbin went still as the flashlight shone over a spindly rock barely jutting out over the top of the water. That was the rock the car got pinned on, however briefly. Yes, this was the place where Changbin had dragged himself choking and coughing and screaming out of the rapidly sinking vehicle. And right there. That’s where he’d clung for dear life, watching helplessly as the dark water took his car and his Felix away from him forever.

 

Woojin let out a strained noise and stumbled like he was drunk.

 

Hyunjin jumped down from the cliffside and rushed up to the older man to steady him.

 

“Oh, the emotion is thick down here,” groaned Woojin. “I’m not even trying to but I’m catching bits and pieces of it all.”

 

“I can feel it, too,” Hyunjin acknowledged. “Now I understand what you mean by deep waters.”

 

Less athletically than Hyunjin, Changbin jumped the last bit of distance and his boots squelched as he landed in the mud. Changbin tried his best not to stare too hard at anything. Not to think too much. The memories were right there, ready to suffocate him, but if he stayed strong, the pain couldn’t reach him. He told himself this over and over.

 

Woojin sucked in a deep breath and held it. “There’s so much tragedy here. Murder. Suicide. Accidental death. There’s so much… unrest.” And it was starting to visibly affect him. The energy was flooding. Rushing up towards them. Drawn all the way from the other side to the two psychics. Woojin looked at Hyunjin. “We’re a light at the end of the tunnel for them. They are _all_ going to come running.”

 

Hyunjin chuckled humorlessly at the prospect. “There’s absolutely no room for error here.” He forced a smile. “I’ll be fine.”

 

There was but the tiniest strip of flat land between their boots and the water’s reach. The slightest misstep would send one or both of them into the current and every time Woojin lost his balance like a drunken man, every time Hyunjin widened his stance to keep Woojin upright in his arms, Changbin’s heart jumped with the very real fear that he’d lose someone else to this current. The river was deeper than it looked. It’s terrifying depth was hidden by how dark the water was. How wide the river stretched.

 

On its rocky bottom, the river could hide a sunken car from a search and rescue team for an entire day.

 

Suddenly, Woojin clutched his neck and sucked in a deep, wheezing breath. He turned and looked right at Changbin. “He helped free you.” They were standing right next to each other but now it felt like they were on opposite sides of the river. “But the car smashing into the rock trapped Felix in his seat as the water poured in.”

 

Changbin lost all feeling in his legs and sank down onto the muddy ground. Before he knew it, tears were in his eyes. How did Woojin even _know_ that? How did he know!? Changbin’s stomach seized, forcing a sob out of him. He felt like he was going to be sick. He held up a hand and slapped himself across the face.

 

If he had just… If he had just-

 

“It is not your fault, Changbin,” Hyunjin cried out. “It was an accident.”

 

Before Changbin knew it, there were arms being wrapped around him. Squeezing him so tight he couldn’t breathe. “I tried... so hard… to get him out!” He screamed the words at the top of his lungs, choking on air. “But I failed him! I left him!” He couldn’t hold it back any more. All of this trying to be strong… He couldn’t do it. He squeezed his eyes shut as the tears poured out of him, as his nose clogged up. “He… prob-ba-ba-ably d-doesn’t e-e-even want to s-see me.”

 

Hyunjin pressed his forehead to Changbin’s. He hummed a wordless, soothing tune.

 

Changbin was just so tired. He’d been holding it all back for so long but now he couldn’t. The sadness crushed him. He fell to pieces in Hyunjin’s arms.

 

Woojin shoved his hands in the pockets of his coat. He watched the scene in front of him with a blank face. With the absolute neutrality of a doctor after a failed surgery, he delivered the awful truth, “Changbin, you both would have died if you’d spent even another moment fooling with his seat belt.”

 

Hyunjin’s humming came to a halt. “Christ, Woojin.”

 

“It’s the truth. Felix had already drowned when-”

 

“Shut up!” Hyunjin cried out.

 

Changbin didn’t hear them. He couldn’t hear anything over the memories falling over his head. He choked and sputtered and fought for breath just like he had on that awful night, except now he had a different kind of salty water pooling in his throat.

 

Hyunjin pulled away. His expression hardened with determination as he accepted the very dangerous thing he was about to attempt. He stood up. Even in the cold, wet air, he yanked off his black trench coat. He then he took his shades off of his face and tugged his sweater up over his head, revealing his pale and slim torso and the numerous black tattoos that criss-crossed his skin. He shoved his wet, muddy clothes into Woojin’s arms. “Just stop talking.”

 

“This is too close to midnight for my liking,” Woojin immediately disobeyed.

 

Hyunjin fixed him with a look. With his shades no longer in place, the shine in his eyes was unmistakable.

 

“But we’ve already started the process, so…” Woojin trailed off, no longer sounding like the confident man he’d introduced himself as earlier in the night.

 

The sorrow released its hold on Changbin. Almost shamed, he wiped the salt trails off of his face and sucked the last of his sobs back down his throat.

 

Hyunjin took another treacherous step towards the water’s edge. And then another. His shoes were practically in the water now. On such a precipice, the tiniest miscalculation in his balance would send him slipping.

 

It may have been what he wanted.

 

“Are you with us now,” Woojin questioned, leaning over Changbin. “You have to be alert for this. Stand up.”

 

Changbin attempted to speak but his voice was trapped in his chest. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What… why… What’s about to happen?”

 

Woojin didn’t answer him. “You have to be an active participant.”

 

Slowly, Changbin stood up. He almost couldn’t stay balanced on his feet. The ground _appeared_ flat but the mud was so thick it threatened to yank the shoes right off of him. He feared for Hyunjin’s safety even more. He looked up at the man. “What’s he about to do?”

 

As if in response, Hyunjin’s tattoos began to glow. Impossibly. Yellow like the ink on his skin had been mixed with sparkling gold. The light seemed to push the fog away, bringing everything around them into mind-numbing clarity.

 

“Do you see his tattoos,” Woojin asked rhetorically. He reached out a hand. His fingertips hovered a mere hair’s width above Hyunjin’s back. “He doesn’t have so many just for show. They are patterns and symbols passed down through the Hwang family for generations. Every place on his skin where lines of ink intersect is a knot to trap ghosts.” And there were many such intersections on his body. Hundreds. Thousands.

 

Changbin swallowed. Partially in awe. Mainly in fear of the possibilities of what all of this meant.

 

Woojin continued his explanation. “He’s going to dip himself in the other side... Like a fisherman’s net.” He clenched his jaw. “I’m trying to make this easy. He’ll… I guess you can say he’ll catch ghosts and then he’ll pull himself out of the water. He just won’t be _alone_.” Woojin turned to look at him then. The flashlight in Changbin’s hand spread numerous shadows across his face. “That’s why you have to be clear-headed, Changbin. You have to be able to recognize Felix’s hand and pull him free of the net.”

 

How hard could that be? Changbin relaxed and blinked away the tears stubbornly clinging to the corners of his eyes.

 

He was going to see Felix again.

 

He was going to get to say goodbye.


	7. I Long To Be Like You; Lie Cold In The Ground Like You

Hyunjin danced.

 

It was more ritualistic than Changbin expected.

 

Hyunjin, as narrow and gangly as he was, could move his body with otherworldly fluidity. He stepped from side to side, holding out his arms and even kicking out his legs. As random as it seemed to be to Changbin, he could tell just by looking that not one movement was out of place. Every action had a purpose, had consequence, as Hyunjin’s body told the countless stories of his ancestors through his dance. He had such magnificent control even over the twists and twirls of his fingers! Hyunjin moved his shoulders, his long back, his head. He rolled his neck and bucked his hips. The action wasn’t sensual, despite his near-nakedness.

 

Woojin’s voice was a hoarse croak from almost right next to Changbin’s left ear. “Are you watching?”

 

“I feel like I have no other choice,” Changbin responded.

 

The dance was both beautiful and horrendous simultaneously but Changbin did not start to get goosebumps up his arms and down his spine until Hyunjin began to _chant_.

 

Hyunjin’s voice dipped low and guttural as he let loose sounds from the depths of his throat. They didn’t seem to be lyrics of any kind. Not quite a song. Not quite shouting. Just voice. Lifting higher and louder.

 

It clicked in Changbin’s head then. Hyunjin was calling attention to himself.

 

The dancing man’s tattoos seemed to respond to the sounds he made. The shining gold light of his ink pulsed across his skin in time with his heart, slowly quickening in tempo and spreading to his fingertips and toes as he exerted himself. The light displayed messages and patterns that had meanings Changbin had no way of understanding. No way of comprehending. He could only watch and be amazed.

 

And frightened.

 

Changbin let out a choking sound. A dry sob or something closer to a hiccup. “He’s scaring me.”

 

Woojin didn’t take his eyes off of Hyunjin. “This is what you wanted.” His voice was cold. “This is why you hired us.”

 

Yet it still felt wrong. Dark. Twisted. To Changbin, it was the equivalent of taking a shovel and digging Felix’s coffin right out of the ground, smashing open the lid and touching Felix’s cold, lifeless face. “I didn’t say I wanted him to stop.” Nothing would keep him from this.

 

Such a stern response made Woojin look away from Hyunjin and stare at his client, eyebrow raised. “Then just wait,” the psychic said after a long pause.

 

Changbin nodded solemnly. He waited.

 

Time seeped past. Slow and thick like molasses. Gumming up Changbin’s thoughts. He wasn’t sure if he was psyching himself out or if he could really feel the atmosphere around them shift and change.

 

There was no wind. No clouds in the sky. No movement from the trees.

 

The silvery-white light of the moon sucked the very color out of the air. It was nighttime and already quite dark, true, but the world seemed to get darker still. The kind of dark that Changbin’s flashlight could not seem to chase away. No matter where he pointed the light, the shadows hardened around them. Sharpened.

 

Even the constant roaring of the river current was softening, sounding farther and farther away until Hyunjin’s chanting voice was louder than everything.

 

“It’s midnight,” Woojin announced.

 

It explained everything. Changbin didn’t quite know why or how, but it explained everything.

 

Hyunjin’s chanting changed pitch. It angled higher and… sideways somehow. His throat seemed to emit a second voice. A third. A fourth. All of them chanting along. All of them calling, beseeching, begging.

 

The more and more Changbin watched, the more worried he became.

 

The earlier gracefulness of Hyunjin’s movements was losing out to some odd sort of rigidity and tension. Hyunjin’s arms moved in stop-start jerks like the slowly winding down ticking of a clock. An eerie sense of deja vu washed over Changbin, ghosting over his arms like he’d just walked through a spiderweb. He’d seen behavior like this before. Earlier tonight when that Jeongin kid had been… possessed.

 

Changbin glanced at his watch. He hadn’t been counting the seconds or anything, but he still knew that it had been many minutes since Woojin had told the time. Yet his watch still claimed that it was midnight.

 

Around them, the world remained quiet and dark and still.

 

Only Hyunjin was in motion. A beacon of gold light.

 

“He’s being escorted,” Woojin said. “Guided, rather. Generations of his family showing him the path across the gap.”

 

Changbin barely listened to him. Woojin’s explanations were almost a _distraction_. Changbin wanted to watch. He wanted to see everything. Feel it and experience it and carry it with him. Changbin kept his eyes on Hyunjin’s body. On the bulge of his muscles as he arched and turned. Hyunjin’s shambling motions made him look less like himself and more like a reanimated corpse, hopping and dragging itself forward as it fought against the stiffness of its own joints and bones. As it fought its own state of decay. Changbin reached out for Hyunjin. If only to pull him away from the river’s edge.

 

Woojin’s hand gripped Changbin’s fingers tightly. Painfully. “Do not touch him. You can’t follow him where he’s going.” Woojin yanked on Changbin so that he’d take a step or two back.

 

He didn’t seem to be going _anywhere_ , Changbin wanted to say, but as he stood there and watched, the more he understood. Hyunjin was indeed going somewhere. In fact, he had already left. Yes, the man was standing in front of them, dancing and shaking and shouting, but _Hyunjin_ was not there. He had lent his body to some other, foreign force. Some exploding star of energy that Changbin could swear he could feel pulling on him. Not physically. He was feeling this on an inner level. Gravity loosening its hold on him and making the space between his ribs go numb.

 

“Is he okay,” Changbin asked. He tore his eyes away from Hyunjin’s ritual dance to stare at Woojin’s placid face.

 

“He is with his family. They won’t let him get hurt.”

 

Changbin absorbed that information. Hyunjin’s family. His ancestors. Countless ghosts.

 

“I am going to die,” Changbin said simply.

 

“Yes,” Woojin agreed remorselessly. “We all are.” It was fact.

 

Changbin was in his heavy coat and scarf but he got the chills. He knew this! Of course he did. He had known such a simple fact of life for as long as he could remember but now that he had lost Felix, now that he’d come so close to death himself, Changbin _knew_ this. Death was always approaching. The clock would

just

stop

ticking.

 

The thought haunted Changbin. Kept him up at night. Made it impossible to go to sleep sometimes. He would lie awake at some ungodly hour of the night, hand over his chest, counting every heartbeat with his eyes squeezed shut, _knowing_ that he had a finite number of them left but wishing against everything that his heart would beat endlessly. Some nights, he’d worry himself into a frenzy, a panic attack, and his heart would thrash so hard that he’d go lightheaded.

 

He must have been close to working himself into such a state right then because Woojin tightened a hand around Changbin’s forearm and the pain of his fingernails digging into Changbin’s skin through his coat brought him back to the present moment.

 

“How can you do it,” Changbin asked.

 

“Do what?” Woojin’s hand slid down Changbin’s arm to his wrist. He steadied the hand Changbin was using to hold up the flashlight and, within moments, the beam of light stopped shaking.

 

“How do you stay so close to the other side without absolutely losing your marbles?”

 

Woojin didn’t have an answer for him. At least not right away. Several seconds passed before he released his hold on Changbin’s wrist, satisfied that the man could now hold the light steady. “Just live, Changbin,” said Woojin. “Despite everything.”

 

Changbin could not bring himself to respond. He just returned his attention to Hyunjin.

 

The dancing man seemed to be on the knife edge of his balance. Not just being a breath away from slipping off of a rock and into the river but also existing right at the precipice between life and death. There was almost something _pained_ about Hyunjin’s movements now. He moved in a surreal manner. Bending unnaturally. Twisting about harshly. Inhumanly. Changbin could compare Hyunjin’s ritual to the scrambling of a wounded animal struggling for breath. Yet Changbin clearly saw that there was _power_ in Hyunjin’s motions. Or, the motions of whatever spirit he had allowed to borrow his body for this.

 

“A master at work,” Woojin said softly. Reverently. His eyes were wide in awe. His mouth hung agape. “All these years later and I still don’t know why he chooses to work for a lowly psychometric. He can do so much _more_ than I can. He can use his talents for so much more than finding forgotten wedding rings.” He gasped as he realized something. His voice took on a lighter and borderline gossipy tone. “Now I know why he put up no resistance when I took your case.”

 

Changbin spoke at a whisper. “Should we talk? Are we… interrupting?”

 

As if to respond to his question, Hyunjin whirled around towards them.

 

He did it with such suddenness that Changbin jumped back and would have fallen backwards right into the mud if Woojin wasn’t there with a sturdy arm around his waist.

 

“Hyunjin,” Changbin asked, worried that he’d upset the man somehow.

 

Hyunjin’s dance didn’t stop. His chanting didn’t stop.

 

Now that Changbin got a better look at him, there was no way the man could hear them. No way that he could see them.

 

There was a vacancy in Hyunjin’s face. The glow of his tattoos had reached into his eyes and the faintest of gold light spilled from his pupils.

 

One word jumped forward in Changbin’s head: _husk_.

 

“Hyunjin,” Changbin repeated, even more upset. He had been eager for this five, ten, forty, fifty minutes ago or whenever this madness started, but now he wasn’t so sure. This was darker stuff than he thought it was going to be. They were out here in the middle of the night tampering with something ancient here! They were just casually toeing the line between one side of the coin and the other, a divide that had existed since the _very beginning_.

 

Changbin asked, “How long does this take?” It felt like hours had passed yet his watch still read midnight.

 

“It hasn’t been half as long as you may think,” said Woojin cryptically.

 

That couldn’t be right. “It’s been forever.”

 

“I told you that our worlds are extremely close, right? Ours and theirs? Really, it only takes an instant to travel such a short distance.” Woojin fixed Changbin with a serious look.

 

Changbin gulped and nodded.

 

Death.

 

Always there. Always lurking. Waiting. Ignoring every shallow plea for ‘a little more time.’

 

Woojin continued, “But Hyunjin can… take his time crossing the gap. His whole family can. Oh, they’re old. They go way back. Long before Korea was ever a country. It’s their duty to walk the gap. Observe it. Maintain it.”

 

Changbin was hardly following.

 

Woojin must have been able to tell this from the face Changbin was making. “Remember back at that old house when we got caught in the center of that tear? Hyunjin closed it. Or, more accurately, he sewed the tear back together.”

 

Changbin remembered. When Hyunjin had slammed that bedroom door shut hard enough to make the whole world stop, his tattoos had been glowing then as well.

 

“Now watch,” said Woojin, pointing. “Do you see it?”

 

To Changbin, nothing was happening. Nothing was changing. Wait. No. Hyunjin had stopped dancing. It was odd that such stillness had replaced all of that movement without Changbin noticing. “Is it over? Is he back?”

 

“Yes,” Hyunjin answered for himself. His voice was little more than a hoarse, paper-thin rattle.

 

“That’s not what I’m pointing to,” Woojin said. “Look.”

 

Changbin looked. He looked and looked and looked.

 

And then he saw.


	8. The Clock Is Ticking

The hands came from the ground, ripping out of the shadows. Tearing themselves free.

 

One or two at first. Almost unnoticeable. Little more than tricks of the moonlight and the fog. Then there were more. Dozens. Burrowing from out of the earth like pale worms. Like larvae hatching.

 

They were spectral things, the hands. Thin. Wispy. Near-skeletal in appearance. Their ghastly, transparent skin glowed with the same silver-blue shine as the full moon in the cloudless sky above them.

 

Changbin swore. His head swam with nausea as his brain struggled to put logic and reason to what it was he was seeing… and failed. It was impossible to believe.

 

He could almost hear them. The hands. The way they grabbed at the rocks. The scratching of their fingernails like prison chains dragging over stone.

 

He wasn’t paying enough attention. One of the floating hands grabbed at Changbin's leg. Passed _through_  his legs. The fingers left no visible marks on him or his clothes yet his skin--no, his soul--felt like it was burned by the touch.

 

Something triggered in Changbin’s mind. A memory. Yet, somehow, not his memory. Not one that he could discern. In his head, images in grainy black and white surged forth, too quickly for him to slot together into any kind of comprehensible story. He saw a wooden crate not too far off from the size of a coffin. Then the image was gone. Leaving him with a suffocating feeling. Tight and small. Claustrophobic. He was standing upright but it was as if _he’d_ been the one crammed into something too small for his body to fit. Pounding on its surface. No air to breathe as he heard the soil be dumped on top of him. Not really meaning to, Changbin screamed.

 

“Take it easy,” Woojin comforted him. “They’re not here for you.”

 

And they weren’t. In theory.

 

The hands drifted through the air towards Hyunjin like moths being drawn to flame.

 

For the most part, most of them passed right by Changbin. That didn’t make him feel any better though. The air around him felt so _charged_. The hair on his arms stood on end. He couldn't help but wonder if he was tainting himself somehow by being here. By being a participant in this.

 

Woojin pressed the tips of his fingers to the side of his head and winced as if fighting off a sudden headache. “The energy is so intense. Emotion stacked on top of emotion in layers far deeper than I’ve ever experienced.”

 

“Is that good or bad,” Changbin asked dumbly, knowing good and well that it was a bad thing.

 

Woojin just aimed his gaze at his assistant. “Hyunjin?”

 

“Nothing is wrong on my end,” the man said, but not in an arrogant way. “But I will admit that-" He inhaled sharply as if in pain. "I'll admit that even my family is having difficulties right now, keeping all of them at bay.”

 

Just then, a hand pressed against Changbin’s back. Right at the center of his spine. The touch was freezing cold even through the material of his coat. He jumped. Every muscle in his body went tense. The touch ignited images that burned into the backs of his eyelids. Images he wasn’t familiar with. A life viewed from someone else’s eyes. Changbin saw a woman standing at the edge of the cliff. Sobbing. Her heart was full of sadness and loss. The taste of it flooded Changbin’s mouth, coppery as if he’d bitten his tongue and filled his cheeks with blood. He knew what the source of that sadness was somehow: a missing child found dead after months of police searching. The woman bit back her tears and then stepped over the edge.

 

Gravity did the rest.

 

The memory let go of Changbin and then he was back on the riverbank, Hyunjin and Woojin standing over him, their eyebrows knitted with concern. Somehow, in the moment Changbin had been _elsewhere_ , he’d fallen onto his back in the cold mud. His pants were grimy. His coat was soaking wet beneath him. He shivered in the chill of the late February night. When his eyes focused, he looked up first at Hyunjin and then over at Woojin. “I think I just saw how that lady died.”

 

“That... usually doesn’t happen,” said Woojin, prying the flashlight free of Changbin’s unsteady hand. “Maybe it's because it's a full moon? Because it's midnight?” He shot a worried glance in Hyunjin’s direction. "You know more about this than I do."

 

“I don't know either,” the tall psychic stated. Not exactly the most reassuring sentiment.

 

Changbin didn’t even have the strength left to stand. It was as if the ghost had sucked a bit of energy from him.

 

Hyunjin bit his bottom lip in thought. “They should only be coming for me... Yet they are aware of you. They may be attracted to your burden, Changbin. The one you just can’t seem to let go of.” Felix. He didn't have to say it but Changbin understood.

 

Woojin aimed the flashlight in Changbin’s direction, making him lift a hand to block the light from his eyes. Woojin said, “Don’t let them take you with them.”

 

Changbin gulped. That sounded so terrifying. So _final_. He wanted to be with Felix always, but... “I won't.”

 

“Alright. Start looking for your lover,” Woojin ordered. “The longer this takes, the more dangerous it will become for all of us.” He lowered his voice and mumbled the next part to himself. "We shouldn't even be out here on a night like this."

 

A chill swept over Changbin. It wasn’t the wind. More a cold presence. Something right behind him draining warmth out of the air. He was almost too slow to see it coming. Changbin yelped as a ghost drew up to him. He rolled to the left to avoid the grasping hands, completely coating himself in mud. Spectral fingers tightened into fists in the place where his neck had been the previous second. "Why are they trying to hurt me?"

 

"Ghosts only know emotion. Thus, they are attracted to it." Woojin backed away from Changbin. “It could be our psychic energy making you vulnerable." He glanced towards Hyunjin. "We should give him some space.” He took another step backwards, taking the brightness of his flashlight with him.

 

“No,” Changbin choked out. Already, the shadows were racing up to him.

 

Just like in the old house, the space around them all seemed to be stretching and skewing with little care to physics or reason. Woojin should have been next to him but now he and the flashlight were terribly far away. Even Hyunjin, who couldn’t move too far with the river near his boots, seemed to be a world away, the swampy riverbank stretching endlessly between the trio as if the world ended with them.

 

A hand grabbed at Hyunjin’s wrist. His tattoos glowed brighter in the place where the ghost touched him and then the specter dimmed and dimmed until Changbin could no longer see it.

 

“Trapped,” Hyunjin explained, pointing to the crisscrossing lines of ink on his slim, bony wrist. “Don’t worry, I’ll set her free when we’re done here.” Despite the distance between them, his voice was loud and clear. Close. Almost right in Changbin's ear. Hyunjin continued, sounding strained. “There’s so many of them.” He barely had the sentence out of his mouth when another hand squeezed tight around his shoulder. His tattoos glowed brightly, gold light clashing with the silver of the moon. The ghost vanished.

 

His tattoos were a ghost net, Changbin remembered. And he was doing all of this to help him find Felix.

 

“Look,” Woojin warned, pointing.

 

Hyunjin and Changbin turned so that they were looking farther up the riverbank. It wasn’t just hands pulling themselves out of the shadows now. It was arms. Torsos. Heads. Entire bodies stretching out of the fog and materializing in the night air, floating towards them. Grasping, clutching, reaching.

 

“This should have waited another night,” Woojin announced, probably far too late to make much of a difference. Was his voice shaking? Were his shoulders trembling with fear? “Or at least until after midnight.”

 

Hyunjin braced himself. “I can handle it.”

 

“Can you?” Woojin asked rhetorically.

 

“Yes, I was trained all of my life for this.”

 

“For _this_?” Woojin waved a hand to indicate the fact that they were now surrounded on all sides.

 

At least the dark bubble of warped space around them was shrinking again, bringing the psychics closer to Changbin but also bringing the ghosts closer as well. The air seemed to ripple and waver around the bodies of the ghosts, making it appear like Changbin was underwater. Dark and cold and alone like on that wretched night that he would never ever be able to forget.

 

A ghost lunged at Hyunjin only to be caught in the net of his tattoos. The flash from his ink was like a gun going off and the psychic wheezed from the impact. Even as Changbin watched, two more ghosts collided with the man and were snatched up by the net, each incident made him flinch.

 

“You’re going to hurt yourself like this,” Woojin said, exasperated. “Maybe this wild technique could work somewhere else but this place is... too much. The waters are too deep. Too opaque.”

 

“I can do it,” Hyunjin insisted. His voice was still half-destroyed from his ritual. Even such a simple sentence like that broke in half between his lips and his voice was now raspy and dry.

 

“Hyunjin, I can’t lose you. You’re too important.”

 

“My family’s watching. I'll be okay.”

 

“There are still limits.”

 

Changbin wasn’t paying much attention to their arguing. One of the ghosts had trampled ~~over~~ ~~into~~ _through_ him as he shambled past.

 

The ghost’s foot was cold. Wet. Hard. Heavy. Yet it also felt like nothing at all.

 

Like nothing.

 

A void.

 

An unknowable darkness from which there was no escape.

 

Changbin screamed. It didn’t hurt yet it _hurt_ . The pain that cut through him was worse than actually being stepped on! The chill in his stomach where the ghost’s foot had been was so intense that Changbin thought he might vomit. He crawled backwards, away from the trudging ghosts. The cold mud sucked at his gloves and boots as if the ground was trying to swallow him whole. He fell into another brief memory. No. Not a memory but a _vision_. A glimpse through the eyes of the ghost in their final moments. This one was less clear than the one he’d seen previously. Only a gun stood out in Changbin’s mind. The muzzle was pressed to the back of his head. Then he smelled gunpowder. A bullet went through his skull. Executioner style.

 

“What is happening to me,” Changbin wailed. "What? Why?" He clutched the back of his head but there was no bullet hole. No blood. No pain.

 

Hyunjin started to move towards him but Woojin held up his hand. “Step back,” he commanded. “We’re standing too close together as it is. He’s going to get dragged under.”

 

Reluctantly, Hyunjin took one step back and then another until the heels of his shoes were practically in the rushing water of the river.

 

Woojin approached Changbin and, with some effort, pulled the frightened man to his feet.

 

Around them, ghosts continued to drag their way across the mud and rocks and tree roots, climbing out of the hill, out of the earth, out of the water, to converge on Hyunjin hungrily.

 

“I’ve never seen so many at once,” Woojin admitted. "Not even during memorial festivals." His eyes were wide with fear and the silvery shine of the ghosts were reflected in his irises.

 

Changbin had seen the truth for himself in those nightmarish flashes of insight. “This river holds so many souls. People throw themselves off these cliffs,” he said. “Shady types come here to… dispose of their trash.” It was as if he could drink the ghost's last moments out of the air. "Car accidents. Hikers losing their balance on the rocks. So many people come here to die."

 

“It’s an ideal spot,” said Woojin matter-of-fact in spite of the circumstances. “Remote location. Far enough away from the city yet close enough to main highways to still be somewhat accessible. Anything can get lost out here. On purpose or by accident.”

 

“Let’s focus on the task at hand,” Hyunjin called out. His whole face was contorted with stress as yet another ghost slammed into him, absorbed into the net of his tattoos.

 

Woojin turned to Changbin. Perhaps it was the odd lighting but he looked pale. “Do you see him?”

 

Changbin shook his head. He hadn't seen Felix.

 

He didn’t want to think about it, really. Felix being here. Changbin was learning all over again that Felix was dead and gone. If he was _here_ among these phantoms, then… Changbin squeezed his eyes shut but the brightness of the ghosts were like sunspots on his eyelids.

 

“Come on, Changbin. We’re pressed for time,” Woojin urged. "Hyunjin can't do this all night."

 

Slowly, Changbin opened his eyes.

 

Seeing the parade of ghosts lurch towards Hyunjin, faster and faster, just blurs of motion... It made this whole thing feel wrong. Distant. It had only been a few weeks yet Felix's death already felt like it had happened in another lifetime. Felix was _everything_ to Changbin. Felix was his whole world. His love. His reason for living. His soulmate. He could count Felix's freckles. He could recall the sensation of Felix's warm, small hands on his skin. All of the joy and the pain they had shared over the past several years was permanently imprinted on Changbin’s heart. On his life! He would never forget Felix. Right? The tears and the smiles, the kisses and the arguments, the warm touches and the cold shoulders. All of it mattered. Good. Bad. Sickness. Health. All of it meant something. So how was it that all of those memories amounted to little more than trying to spot a familiar head among a procession of faceless, nameless, soulless shells? How was it that Changbin could not recognize Felix in a crowd?

 

Such an abysmal truth depressed him. “Will we even be able to find him-” Changbin stopped short.

 

Another ghost had passed through him.

 

Silvery-blue fire flickered in front of his eyes as the ghost came out of the other side of his body. His every nerve ending caught fire and exploded horror inside of his brain.

 

More choppy visions.

 

Trees all around. A grayish light that may have been sunrise.

 

Pain around his neck. So brutal it was asphyxiating.

 

Sadness so primal and so real that he was nearly brought to tears right then and there.

 

Then it was all gone. Shattered like the remnants of a nightmare.

 

Changbin clutched at the collar of his shirt with both hands and despairingly pulled on it to ease the tension around his throat even though the cotton was hardly tight enough to obstruct his breathing. His eyes almost instinctively darted up towards a tall, spindly, winter-naked deciduous tree on the cliff high above their heads. He didn’t know how he knew but he was certain that the tree up there was the same one he’d seen the young man in his vision hanging from. As if to taunt him, Changbin could almost picture the noose that had hung from the trees branches, the corpse dangling beneath it and swaying in the wind.

 

It was awful.

 

This whole thing was awful and regret bubbled up in his gut. They shouldn't be doing this.

 

That’s when the fear hit him right at the base of his neck. True fear sending an almost mechanical vibration straight down his spine. He twisted violently, his fight or flight response kicking him to run run run run. He was too startled to move. To shook to try and get away from all of this. One damning thought lodged itself into his head. Even if he saw Felix, even if he reached for the man’s hand and grabbed hold of him, would he only relive those harrowing minutes trapped in the car as water rushed in? He had lived through it enough times in his dreams. Changbin gasped for air like he was drowning. The seatbelt was the net tying him to the passenger seat as his lungs filled with water, as the last thing he saw was his own face leaning towards him, reaching, struggling.

 

It must have hurt so much.

 

“I’m so sorry,” Changbin muttered. “You didn’t deserve this. I didn’t deserve you.”

 

“Changbin,” Woojin snapped. “Get a hold of yourself. We’re sticking our necks out for you here. Come _on_.”

 

“Sorry, sorry, I’ll focus now.” Changbin swallowed down the dark lump in his throat. He kept his eyes on the ghosts passing by and paid special attention to their paths as they rushed madly towards Hyunjin. He did his best to side step them, not wanting to get thrown into someone else’s death.

 

The ghosts were numerous. Their faces were mere smudges of shadow, the faintest indications of eyes and noses and mouths. Their skin was mottled with burns and bruises and cuts. Their hair was damp with blood. None of them looked familiar. Nothing he saw reminded him of Felix. Still, he searched. He squinted at every face that passed him by but it was becoming more and more difficult to differentiate the ghosts from each other. They blended together. Overlapped. Became four-armed and four-legged monstrosities. There were tall shapes and round shapes and short shapes and thin shapes but nothing looked like Felix to him. Nothing looked like the man he loved so much he wanted to marry him and spend the rest of his life with him.

 

“Felix,” he called out. It hadn’t occurred to him to call the man’s name until then. “Felix, where are you?” He ducked out of the way of a thick cluster of ghosts, barely escaping a reaching hand. “I love you, Felix! Let’s go home together.”

 

Breathless from yelling, he stood still and watched. Listened. Changbin could hear the ghost’s feet scrape against the rock, hear their quiet sobs, their muffled screams.

 

Dying hurt so much.

 

He knew that now.

 

It was all fire eating away at flesh and muscle and bone. It was all water clogging up noses and mouths. Bullets ripping holes into skin. Knives carving lines into veins. Hard drugs turning organs into steaming mush. Ninety-year old hearts beating their last.

 

Pain. Pain. Pain.

 

Even after death, that was all there was.

 

Pain.

 

“This isn’t working,” Woojin announced. “Hyunjin can’t take much more. Changbin, have you really not spotted that guy yet?”

 

The question was absurd. How was Changbin supposed to tell? All of the ghastly, silvery ghosts looked identical to him! They barely had expressions. Really, they were more impressions of people than anything. Blurry, stippled paintings _hinting_ at a life. 

 

Changbin hated himself. He had thought finding Felix would be easy. He thought he knew and loved the man enough to be able to spot him instantly, but...

 

“Hurry,” urged Woojin. "Hyunjin’s at his limit. I’ll _make_ him sever the connection.” He was already using his free hand to dig around in the pockets of his coat for something.

 

“I don’t know where he is,” Changbin wailed. His voice was a high and panicked shrill. He turned back to the crowd of ghosts. “Felix! Felix, where are you? I’m begging! Let me see you.” He let himself wonder if his hunch from earlier in the night had been correct. Maybe Felix did not want to see him. Maybe Felix hated him for not being able to save him. For going on living without him. Changbin screeched out, “Felix! I’m so sorry. I did everything I could. Please forgive me. Please!”

 

Another ghost brushed past him. A little girl. No older than nine or ten. Contact with her sent the ice-cold touch of death straight up Changbin’s spine. Changbin saw what she saw right before she died. A frightening man with wide shoulders and a broad chest. His face was obscured by shadow. There was a large knife in his hand that was already covered in red.

 

Changbin almost couldn’t shake the memory free. He almost let himself be absorbed by the twisted, brutal pain that split his side open. No. He had to stay focused.

 

He cupped his hands around his mouth and screamed. “Felix!” Was yelling even helping? Could any of these ghosts hear his voice?

 

Hyunjin let out a deep, pained yell like he’d just been shot.

 

“No, no, no,” Woojin took a hasty few steps towards Hyunjin but paused, reconsidering the mass of ghosts he’d have to power through to reach the man. “I knew this was beyond our skill level. I should have stopped this at the beginning. Hyunjin!”

 

Whenever the ghosts reached Hyunjin, they grabbed at the man’s wrists and shoulders or pressed their glowing hands to his back as if laying claim to a piece of him. They must have claimed enough because now Hyunjin looked blank-eyed like he did during the ritual.

 

“Changbin, you’ve got ten seconds, I swear,” Woojin grunted. He pulled something rectangular free from his pocket. A simple slip of paper.

 

No.

 

A not-so-simple slip of paper. It was thin and yellow. Words of power were painted on it in bold red ink. The syllables made the air around the paper wobble and brighten. The words hurt for Changbin to look at. He turned away.

 

The ghosts immediately responded.

 

The talisman in Woojin's hand had some kind of repelling effect on them. The ghosts immediately around Woojin screamed and hissed and rapidly backed away.

 

Changbin kept his eyes on Hyunjin. His face was dull. His eyes unfocused. A thin trail of blood leaked from his nose.

 

Changbin suddenly remembered that even a well-made net could _break_.

 

Already, the ghosts weren’t being trapped in Hyunjin’s ink as quickly as they had been mere moments earlier. It was no longer almost instantaneous. Now, there was a bit of a delay as if his tattoos were losing their potency. Their power. Even when the ghosts dug their shimmering fingers into Hyunjin’s skin, they lingered for several seconds before the ink managed to absorb them. Trap them. Due to the slowing of this process, the ghosts piled up, taking up space. When there was no more room to grab at Hyunjin’s torso, they clutched at his calves. At his ankles. In seconds, the ghosts had partially buried Hyunjin beneath a tangled web of glowing silver hands.

 

“Five seconds!” Woojin brought Changbin’s attention back to his current task. “So help me, Changbin. _Move it_.” He stepped closer to Hyunjin. Bit by bit, the talisman’s force fought a few of the ghosts off.

 

He was only angering them, Changbin realized. The talisman agitated them. Made them rage. Now the ghosts were rushing Hyunjin down with renewed vigor. Soundlessly screaming. Hungrily clawing at the air with their cold, transparent hands.

 

“Four,” Woojin counted down. “Three, two…” He was almost on top of Hyunjin.

 

Changbin searched the summoned ghosts. He had probably looked at a hundred faces by now. More. Yet none of them had been Felix. He was absolutely sure. “He’s not here.” Changbin’s voice came out shaky and fragile. “Of course he wouldn’t be waiting for me.”

 

Woojin took that as permission to put an end to their dangerous experiment. He slapped the talisman down right across Hyunjin’s forehead.

 

Everything happened instantly.

 

There was a loud noise like thunder. The ground shook enough to knock Changbin down.

 

All of Hyunjin’s tattoos lit up gold for one brief lightning bolt of a second and then his ink went dark.

 

Dozens and dozens of silver streaks of light erupted out of the geometric patterns on Hyunjin’s skin as the ghosts were released from the net. The lights streaked upwards towards the full moon in the sky, gleaming like some bastardized meteor shower as they were yanked back to the other side.

 

Hyunjin collapsed. Woojin barely moved fast enough to grab him by the collar before he went tumbling backwards into the river.

 

Time seemed to _lurch_ forward.

 

Changbin’s watch read 12:01 AM.


	9. In Loving Memory

It took over half an hour, but Woojin and Changbin managed to carry an unconscious Hyunjin away from the river and up the steep incline. Woojin bringing their tense seance to an abrupt halt seemed to have slammed the door shut on the night’s strange happenings. No ghosts seemed to be lingering, thank goodness, and the air had lost its suffocating thickness. 

 

What remained, however, was a different kind of heaviness that settled in Changbin’s bones. Hyunjin had called it his burden. For once, Changbin could actually feel it dragging behind him.

 

Or maybe he was just tired. Exhausted after an endless night.

 

The nightmare was over now, Changbin thought. 

 

Thin clouds graciously covered up the full moon. The rushing sound of the river was but white noise in the distance. Changbin was so numb from the events he’d witnessed tonight that he wasn’t even disturbed by the low howling sound the wind made as it whistled past the trees and hills. Woojin said next to nothing for the entirety of the trip so Changbin remained quiet, stewing in the foggy depths of his own head. 

 

The thoughts down there were dark and gray and prickly.

 

He kept going back to that painful night. Phantom pain shot through his right arm and his chest and his neck. It was easy to recall all of the  _ noise _ of that night. Screeching tires, the squeal of metal on metal, the deafening thunder of the car hitting the water.

 

He just hated that Felix had died so young. With so much of his life left to live. With so many of his dreams left unfulfilled. So much of his potential left unrealized. Changbin hated that those last few seconds scrambling around in the car weren’t even moments of peace for Felix. He hated that Felix had died in fear. Left alone.

 

Woojin said four words: “Pick up the slack.”

 

Changbin pulled himself free of his misery and lifted Hyunjin’s legs a bit higher.

 

It was tough going, getting back to the top of the cliff. Neither of the men were particularly athletic and Hyunjin’s deadweight was difficult to maneuver on the slopes. Additionally, the rain-damp ground was slippery and Changbin had worn small holes in both knees of his pants--even earned himself a scrape or two--from all of the times he’d slid and fell while carrying Hyunjin. He tried his best not to look too hard at Hyunjin’s slack face. He tried his best not to think about the fact that if someone else were watching them right now, if someone caught them like this way out here in the sticks, he wouldn’t even blame them for thinking that the two of them were out here to bury a body.

 

At long last, they reached the top of the cliff.

 

Hyunjin was still out cold, even after all of that jostling and shaking, but at least it wasn’t an uphill walk anymore. On flatter ground, he was somewhat easier to lift.

 

A lone owl hooted in the distance and then Changbin heard it take off on a flutter of wings.

 

It was close to one in the morning now. The trees around them thinned and the long, empty stretch of road came into view. There wasn’t a single car on the two-lane road. Not a single street lamp to fight the dark. This far out in the countryside, the landscape was swamped in shadows in both directions. The dim glow of the moon and Changbin’s flashlight held between Woojin’s teeth were their only sources of light out here but, for the first time in a long time, Changbin did not fear the proximity of the shadows. Dark was as much a part of life as light was.

 

Just a bit farther, Changbin told himself. 

 

He could see their parked cars and the big wooden bridge stretching across the ravine. A few more steps and they were out of the woods and passing through a small meadow full of calf-high grass and hundreds of flowers with small, white, triangular petals. Their fragrance was strong and tickled Changbin’s nose and the back of his throat. They were soft to the touch, Changbin realized after he slipped yet again and had to kneel in the grass to steady himself and get a new, better hold on Hyunjin’s thighs. The flowers also had a hazy quality to them, the petals emitting the tiniest amount of pale, silvery light. 

 

Changbin glanced up at the sky.

 

The full moon was partially concealed by a passing cloud but enough of its round shape was exposed to paint the edges of the world. The sky was dotted with bright, cold stars. Changbin faced forward again, following Woojin’s lead across the meadow as the man carried Hyunjin, his arms tucked under Hyunjin’s armpits.

 

Changbin was positive the flowers hadn’t been here when they had all first arrived. He definitely would have _ seen _ such alien beauty. Even from the road. The flowers shimmered so brightly.

 

Perhaps they only bloomed at certain times of the evening? He’d heard about night-blooming flowers. Plants that blossomed beneath the glow of the moon as opposed to the shine of the sun.

 

Woojin must not have thought too much of the things. Other than a single sneeze, he made no comment about the flowers. He made no comment at all. Not even instructions.

 

His silence made Changbin worry that the psychic was angry with him somehow. Woojin’s face was so tense.

 

By the time the two of them made it back to where the cars were parked on the side of the road, Changbin was sweating profusely from having carried Hyunjin so far. His every muscle was sore and he was thirsty like he hadn’t tasted a drop of water since he was born.

 

He felt hollowed out. Exhausted. Filthy in every sense of the word.

 

There was little time to rest and properly think, however.

 

“You’re going to have to drive,” Woojin said. They were the first words out of his mouth in ages. Woojin rummaged around in Hyunjin’s coat pocket for the key fob to the sleek red sports car. “You  _ are _ good to drive, right?”

 

He was sore and shaky but it wasn’t like he was drunk. “Yeah… Is- Is he alright?” Changbin asked.

 

Hyunjin was still unconscious. As pale and limp as a corpse. His chest rose and fell with his slow breathing and Changbin could faintly feel a steady pulse where his fingertips were pressed into Hyunjin’s body. 

 

“He’s going to have to be alright.” Woojin unlocked the sports car and swung open the passenger door. “I’m sure he’s just drained. Communing with his ancestors takes a lot out of him. He usually floats in and out of consciousness after he’s done, but--” He stopped himself. His eyes darted towards Hyunjin’s slack face, eyebrows knitting with obvious concern. “But he usually isn’t out of it this long. Help me get him into the car.”

 

Even with the two of them working in tandem, it took quite a bit of strength to lift and fold Hyunjin’s long body onto the passenger seat.

 

Woojin strapped the man in with the seatbelt and then fiddled with the buttons to adjust the seat to what he hoped was something more comfortable. “If he doesn’t wake up by the time we drop you off, I’ll take him to the hospital.” He let out a shaky breath and ran his hands through his hair. Changbin got a good look at him for the first time since they stood by the river. Now he understood that Woojin wasn’t mad at him but just properly spooked. He was still trying to act fearless and unaffected but Changbin was standing close enough to Woojin to hear his haggard, shallow breathing and see the way his hands trembled like autumn leaves in the wind. Cooly, Woojin added, “He must be overwhelmed. That was unlike anything we’ve ever dealt with before and we’ve been doing this for a  _ while _ .” 

 

Changbin felt bad. It had been his own single-minded persistence that had led to them being out here like this.

 

It was as if Woojin had made a guess about what he was thinking. “We went into this knowing it was risky. By all means, we shouldn’t have gone through with it but we wouldn’t have known unless we tried.” He propped his hands on his hips and heaved a sigh as if his weariness had suddenly caught up with him. “Hyunjin’s a headstrong guy. I let him get away with so much, but--”

 

“It was an accident,” said Changbin plainly. “There’s no way you could have known this would happen.” The words sat in the air between them for a pulled-taut moment before Changbin really thought about what he’d said. There was no telling how many times he’d been told that exact same sentiment by concerned friends and mourning family members and well-meaning acquaintances.  _ It was an accident.  _

 

Hyunjin’s head lolled to the side at an uncomfortable-looking angle. Changbin stepped forward, put a hand on the crown of the man’s head and tilted it so his head rested at a more neutral position. 

 

He stepped back

 

Woojin shut the passenger door of the sports car and then tossed the key fob to Changbin. He was barely paying enough attention to catch it before it struck him in the face. Woojin asked, “Can you give me your account information?”

 

It was such an odd question. “What for,” wondered Changbin.

 

“I’ll see about getting you a refund. I know you paid in cash, but...” 

 

“I see,” Changbin cut him off. A refund. A repayment of money to a dissatisfied customer. Was he… dissatisfied? “I will get it to you when we’re back in the city.”

 

Woojin’s face flushed pink with shame. He hurriedly turned away and walked towards his old, ratty sedan parked in front of the two-door. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find him for you. I usually have no trouble finding lost things.”

 

Changbin swallowed air. 

 

His throat was so tight and dry that even something like that nearly choked him up and set him coughing. This whole night, they all had been trying to find Felix but they had come up empty-handed. 

 

Felix was lost. 

 

The people who find lost things couldn’t find him.

 

Thus, the refund.

 

Right.

 

A fresh wave of sadness washed over Changbin.

 

The reality of never getting to see Felix again was like a knife to Changbin’s chest. It weighed heavy on him that he just wouldn’t get to see someone he was so used to seeing every day. He wouldn’t get to hear Felix’s voice. His laughter. Even the silly, high-pitched way he sneezed! The sound had been so annoying and over the top when they’d first gotten to know each other but Changbin had grown to love it. And now he’d come to miss it. Changbin wouldn’t get to feel Felix’s body weight on the other side of the mattress anymore. He wouldn’t get to play his flute for Felix out at the park anymore. He wouldn’t get to wake up to the smell of Felix attempting to cook breakfast anymore. He was simply gone. All the space he’d taken up before was empty now. He’d only left the precious memories of their life together behind. “It’s okay,” Changbin told Woojin but he doubted Woojin had heard him because the psychic was already wrenching the door of his car open and getting inside. “It’s okay.” Changbin repeated. Only this time to himself. 

 

Memories would have to be enough.

 

Woojin cranked up his car and leaned his foot on the gas pedal, making the engine rumble loud and high.

 

It was time to go home. It was time to leave this terrible, haunting night behind.

 

Changbin stepped around the hood of the sports car and swung open the driver’s side door.

 

The car was nice. Really nice. 

 

He’d noticed that much when Hyunjin had first pulled up to the side of the road all of those hours ago. Changbin didn’t even know enough about cars to be able to recognize the make and model but he knew just by looking at the stylish interior that he had no option but to feel like the worst person in the world for sitting in something so clearly expensive when he was this grime-covered. 

 

Then again, Hyunjin was in the passenger seat, as wet and as muddy as he was.

 

Cars could be cleaned. Clothes could be washed. 

 

Life would go on.

 

Changbin shut the door, buckled in and cranked up the car. The engine purred to life. Louder than anything Changbin had ever heard. He gripped the steering wheel tightly. Hands at ten and two like he was back in driver’s ed. 

 

In front of him, Woojin executed a wide U-turn and started up the road heading in the direction of the big city, in the direction that they had come from. He didn’t even seem to be slowing down to wait for Changbin. Probably because there was only one path between here and where they were going.

 

Changbin took one last look at the wooden bridge that had changed everything about his life. 

 

On such a dark night, the bridge was just a black shape against a black sky, hardly perceivable save for the small portion of it illuminated by the car’s headlights. Just being behind the wheel of a car while staring at the bridge made his heart pound even though the car wasn’t even in gear. Changbin hated that the sight of the bridge still made him freeze up; that his fear of it still held so much power over him. 

 

He fought the gloomy urge to drive forward and send yet another car over the bridge railing.

 

Instead, he put the car in drive, twisted the wheel hard to the left and drove away from the bridge.

 

“Thatta boy.” 

 

Changbin glanced towards the passenger seat.

 

Hyunjin reached into his coat pocket, found his sunglasses and slid them onto his nose even though it was dark in the car. “You’ll never go forward if you keep looking back.”

 

“How are you feeling,” Changbin asked him slowly. The man was spouting nonsense. Probably delirious. “Those ghosts didn’t hurt you, did they?” He remembered Hyunjin’s screams of pain. “I mean, are you  _ okay _ ?” He eased on the gas pedal and was almost blown away by how quickly the car accelerated, pressing him into the seat. In seconds, the tail lights of Woojin’s car appeared in front of them like two red, glowing snake eyes. He eased off of the speed. “Hyunjin?” Changbin waited a few more seconds before he looked over at him. “Hyunjin?”

 

The psychic didn’t answer him. His chin had dropped towards his chest. Perhaps he was unconscious again.

 

At least Hyunjin was somewhat alert, Changbin reasoned. He couldn’t be too out of sorts if his number one concern was his sunglasses. Changbin returned his attention to the road and followed Woojin’s car through the countryside, all the way back to Seoul.

 

⚘

 

It was just before dawn when Changbin stirred awake.

 

His body was stiff and as he blinked open his eyelids, he found them heavy and uncooperative. His mouth felt dry like it was full of cotton. He’d slept restlessly. Dreamlessly. He’d probably only been completely asleep for two or three hours.

 

“Finally,” came a soft, rumbling voice from above him.

 

Changbin rubbed at his face. Had he left the television on? Was someone outside of the apartment talking quite loudly?

 

“Good morning.”

 

He saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He rolled over on his bed to see Felix sitting on the edge of it. 

 

“I’ve been trying to wake you up for ages, sleepyhead.”

 

Changbin blinked. Surprise hit him first. Then panic. Then relief. Acceptance. He was dreaming, he told himself. He hadn’t had a good dream about spending time with Felix in so long.

 

“You’re not going to say anything?” Felix snickered. “I see how it is.”

 

How could he be so chipper when it was still dark out? “Good morning,” Changbin croaked out. He cleared his throat once. Twice. Finally, he had the voice to keep speaking. “You’re up early.”

 

“Or maybe you’re just up late,” Felix shot back with a smart alec grin.

 

“Very funny,” Changbin groaned. He reached out a hand towards his nightstand and his fingers clamped around his watch. The watch Felix had gifted him for one of his birthdays. He wore it every day. Only took it off to sleep and shower. He squinted at the clock face in the low light. The time was barely 5AM. “It’s stupidly early,” he moaned. “Why’d you wake me up?” He placed the fancy watch back on the nightstand.

 

Felix slid closer to him, his shifting weight caused the mattress to dip and bounce. “Because I wanted to spend as much time with you as possible… but you must have gotten really sleepy looking for me. I couldn’t get you up.” Felix reached out and ran his hand through Changbin’s dark hair, brushing the uncombed locks away from his small face.

 

Even that little bit of contact was electric. Changbin’s eyes had nearly drift shut again but the touch made him snap them open. The goosebumps crawling up his arm let him know that this was no dream. Felix was really here. Really touching him and speaking to him. Really sitting on the bed next to him. Changbin sat up so quickly that the blood rushed out of his head and made him dizzy. “Felix!”

 

The younger boy laughed. His eyes sparkling with joy. “I forgot how long it takes you to wake up in the morning.”

 

That wasn’t even what was important here! “I found you.”

 

“You did,” Felix confirmed. “Because you finally let it go.”

 

The burden he always carried.

 

When last night’s seance had given them inconclusive results, Changbin had given up on seeing Felix again. He’d accepted that there was nothing more he could do about his loss, about the last few dark weeks. About the accident that had changed everything. Changbin had accepted that worrying wouldn’t bring Felix back. He’d accepted that his only option was to move forward.

 

Despite everything.

 

“We don’t have a lot of time,” Felix half-whispered.

 

The first few rays of fresh sunlight poured into the room through the blinds, striking across Felix’s attractive face in dozens of horizontal slats. With the light touching him like this, Changbin could see the man for what he was.

 

Transparent. There, yet  _ hardly _ there.

 

A ghost.

 

Of course.

 

Felix raised a hand and swiped a finger across the tear sliding down Changbin’s ruddy cheek. His small fingers tickled Changbin’s skin. Familiar. Comfortable. Tender. “Have you been practicing?”

 

Changbin frowned the tiniest bit. “The flute?” In his despair, he’d come mighty close to smashing it to pieces. Throwing it out. Pawning it off. But he just didn’t have the nerve to part with it. The instrument sat in its black and silver case beneath the bed. “No. Not lately. Why do you ask?”

 

“You should practice,” Felix said. His smile could light up the whole world. “Isn’t the national orchestra performing soon? Going on tour?”

 

“Yeah, but-” Changbin started. 

 

Felix cut him off. “All of these years, you worked hard to make it to first chair, did you not?”

 

“Mmhmm, but I havent-”

 

“And you’re not going to let me stop you, are you?” Felix tilted his head to the side, waiting for a serious answer.

 

Changbin had been on leave of absence the past several weeks. On and off, he’d been debating calling up the conductor and asking to opt out of the international tour. His heart had been too heavy for all of that traveling and training and discipline. “I shouldn’t.”

 

“You shouldn’t,” Felix confirmed. “Because we were partners. We elevated each other. We didn’t hold each other back.”

 

Felix’s switch to referring to them in past tense was obvious in the quiet.

 

“I didn’t always act like it,” Felix said quickly, “but I loved to hear you play. You’ll keep playing, right?”

 

“For you?”

 

“No. For you.” Felix grabbed Changbin’s hand. His skin was warm and gentle. Their hands fit so perfectly together. 

 

Giddy joy bubbled in Changbin’s heart. He practically saw rainbows and fireworks much like he had when they had first kissed. When they had first met. It really had been love at first sight. “Yes. I’ll keep playing.”

 

“Good.”

 

Outside, the sun rose steadily higher. The warm light that spilled in through the blinds was soft around the edges but that didn’t stop Changbin from understanding what it meant. A new day was beginning. Their time together was drawing to a close. A chapter was ending but a completely new one wanted desperately to start. Felix stroked Changbin’s hand, dragging his thumb back and forth across Changbin’s ring finger.

 

“I would have said yes, you know,” Felix mumbled, staring at their joined hands. “You caught me off guard, yeah, but… If we’d had a few more seconds, I would have said yes.”

 

Changbin knew what he was talking about: marriage. “Do you regret…” He had to pause to suck in a shaky breath. “Do you regret not speaking up sooner?”

 

Immediately, Felix shook his head. “No.” He looked up and met Changbin’s gaze, his eyes brownish gold like honey. “Now you can go out and find someone else to ask that question.”

 

It was almost like a slap in the face. “Felix.”

 

“Changbin,” Felix mocked him but he chuckled right afterwards and the sound was light and airy. Bells ringing. Birds singing. “We push each other forward, remember? Not hold each other back.”

 

“But I don’t want to leave you.”

 

“You won’t,” Felix said. His tone turned serious. “I’m not going anywhere.”

 

Seconds passed by. The silence was so absolute that Changbin could hear the tinny tick-tock tick-tock of his watch on the nightstand. It was as clear as the pulse of his heart in his ears.

 

“You shouldn’t hold me back, either,” whispered Felix.

 

Tears pooled in the corners of Changbin’s eyes. “I’ll try not to. Not anymore.”

 

“Good.” Felix leaned forward. He pressed his small, soft mouth to Changbin’s left cheek, kissing at the salt trails of his tears. Then he pressed his mouth to the tip of Changbin’s nose and then, at long last, he kissed Changbin on the mouth.

 

Changbin’s eyes fluttered closed. All of his thoughts of Felix were right there on the surface. He hoped Felix could taste them.

 

All too soon, Felix pulled away, taking his warmth and softness with him. “I have to go.” He stood up. The mattress creaked as he did so. The light of dawn coming in through the window revealed the intricate, swirling dance of the dust motes in the air.

 

Changbin couldn’t remember the last time he’d properly, thoroughly cleaned the apartment. Not since coming home after the accident. Perhaps today would be a good day to do it. Perhaps tidy, he’d clean out Felix’s old things to make room for something new. He still had to live, after all. He still had dreams to chase and love to give. Every day was precious because it could so easily be his last.

 

Felix started across the bedroom. His socked feet made shuffling noises on the hardwood floor. Halfway towards the door, Felix paused and turned to look at Changbin. Stare at him. Remember him. “I don’t think I ever told you this, but I’ve always wanted a dog.”

 

“I’ll think of adopting one,” said Changbin eagerly.

 

Felix nodded. He glanced around the room, taking it all in like it would be the last time he’d see it. “Good,” he said. He turned back towards the door and put one hand on the handle, ready as he’d ever be to sew up the jagged corners of the tear.

 

“Goodbye, Felix.” Despite his aching heart, Changbin said such painful words with a smile.

 

“Goodbye, Changbin,” Felix said back. He started to close the door.

 

Changbin sniffed back tears. “You made me so happy.”

 

Felix leaned around the edge of the door that he was still swinging shut. “You made me happy, too. More than I ever bothered to tell you. More than you know.” The door was only open by a sliver now.

 

Changbin leaped out of bed. He rushed towards the door, wanting to follow Felix, but their bedroom stretched an impossible distance between them. “I love you,” Changbin called out. Anything to make this fleeting moment last a little while longer. “From the bottom of my heart, I love you, Felix. I loved you.”

 

Felix’s laugh was full of joy and contentment. “I know.” He turned away. At least this time, he left Changbin with a big smile on his face. No fear. He closed the door behind him. 

 

“I love you,” Changbin shouted again. The room snapped back to its actual size, bringing the closed door right up to his face. He lifted a hand. The door handle was warm under his palm. Warm from Felix’s touch.

 

Changbin heard Felix’s voice from the other side. “I love you, too.”

 

Changbin swung open the door.

 

The apartment was full of sunlight.


End file.
